On February 12, 1785, the 52-year-old Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) said to Leopold Mozart, the father of the then 29-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), “I tell you before God and on my word as an honest man that your son is the greatest composer I have ever heard of. He has taste, and possesses the most consummate knowledge of the art of composition.” It was one of the two greatest composers of the day paying homage to the other one.

Haydn probably met Mozart in the winter of 1781-2, at the court festivities in honor of the Grand Duke Paul, where both of them took part. (Mozart had been studying and admiring the work of the older master since 1774.) Until Mozart’s untimely death, the two maintained the highest respect and affection for one another, though they were rarely in each other’s company. When Mozart looked through Haydn’s six string quartets, Op. 33 in 1782, they had such a profound effect on him Mozart dedicated to Haydn the group of six quartets he wrote (his 14th through 19th) between 1782 and 1785.

In his biography of Haydn published in 1810, Albert Christoph Dies wrote of the final meeting between Haydn and Mozart as follows:

“On the evening of Haydn’s departure (for London), Mozart said: ‘Papa,’ (as he usually called him) ‘you have no education for the great world and you speak too few languages.’ ‘Oh!’ replied Haydn, ‘my language is understood all over the world.’…Mozart, that day, never left his friend Haydn. He dined with him and, when they parted, said, ‘We are probably saying our last adieu in this life.’ Tears welled in both men’s eyes. Haydn applied Mozart’s words to himself: it never occurred to him that Mozart’s life would be cut short the very next year.”

Haydn composed four so-called “London” trios (the second of which contains only one movement) in 1794 and 1795, for the second of two enormously successful concert tours he made to London under the entrepreneurship of Johann Peter Salomon, in 1791 and 1794. (Haydn’s “Oxford” Symphony – No. 92 – was written shortly before the first tour, but played to acclaim in England. Haydn’s last symphony – No. 104 - nicknamed the “London,” was one of six fashioned for the second trip.)

The “London” trios were written originally for two flutes and ‘cello, but they are most often heard as they are to be played today, with flute, violin, and ‘cello (the composer certainly would have approved). Haydn had always been fond of the flute, writing skillfully and warmly for it - as today’s charming and beautifully crafted music demonstrates.

If Haydn was fond of the flute, legend has it that Mozart was not (“an instrument I can’t stand,” he wrote in a letter to his father, responding to one from the latter criticizing his son for leaving commissioned music for the instrument unfinished).

The original impetus for what eventually resulted in Mozart’s two flute concertos and some of the four quartets for flute and strings was, indeed, a commission. In a letter from Mannheim in December 1777, Mozart told his father that a wealthy Dutchman, a flute-playing amateur, offered 200 gulden for “three short, simple concertos and a couple of quartets for flute.” Despite some procrastination, it would appear that the two flute concertos Mozart wrote (and another one for flute and harp), as well as the first two of the quartets (K. 285 and 285a), were composed in 1777 and 1778. The third quartet (K. 285b) – the one we hear today - may not be by Mozart, though its last movement is an arrangement of the Theme and Variations from Mozart’s Serenade for Winds, K. 361. In any event, it appeared in 1782, and the fourth quartet – apparently written for a friend - came in 1787

Whatever the fact of Mozart’s attitude toward the flute, the works definitely by him noted above - and a wonderful Adagio for flute and orchestra – all display the brilliance and imagination of the composer, their fast movements full of spirit and invention, the slow ones beautifully lyrical and engaging.