Mozart 40 & Schubert 5

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Koerner Hall

September 26, 2025, 8pm
September 27, 2025, 8pm
September 28, 2025, 3pm

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“Podger and Tafelmusik breathed and spoke through the score and gave themselves, and us, the space to be human … This is the biggest gift of life: total engagement.”
— Ludwig van Toronto

Critics were quick to notice the “special chemistry” (Barcza Blog) between Tafelmusik and Principal Guest Director Rachel Podger, who returns for the opening concerts of our 2025/26 Season. Directing from the violin with energy that is so “strong and confident as to be paradigm shifting” (Barcza Blog), Podger jump-starts two mainstays of the classical symphonic repertoire.

Written three years before his death in 1791, Mozart’s Symphony no. 40 opens with an intense sense of urgency. The work influenced future generations of composers, including Schubert, who felt “gently haunted by the magic notes of Mozart’s music” while writing his Symphony no. 5.  Sparkling with crispness and clarity, Schubert’s symphony reveals his gift for graceful melody while surprising us with moments of youthful boldness. 

Listen as Podger and Tafelmusik ignite their unique alchemy, transforming these well-known works into an exhilarating concert experience.

Credits & Program
Box Office
Royal Conservatory of Music
(416) 408-0208 | Email
Running Time
120 minutes
Style of Music
Classical orchestral

Guest artists

A headshot of Rachel Podger

Rachel Podger

Principal guest director & violin soloist

“Rachel Podger, the unsurpassed British glory of the baroque violin,” (The Times) has established herself as a leading interpreter of baroque and classical music. Fresh from being announced as the winner of two 2023 BBC Music Magazine Awards for Instrumental Recording and Recording of the Year, as 23/24 Artist in Focus for Kings Place, and with two new albums released this month, Principal Guest Director Rachel Podger was the first woman to be awarded the prestigious Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Prize in October 2015, Gramophone Artist of the Year 2018, and the Ambassador for REMA’s Early Music Day 2020. A creative programmer, she is the founder and Artistic Director of Brecon Baroque Festival and her ensemble Brecon Baroque.

Following an exciting and innovative collaboration, A Guardian Angel, with the vocal ensemble VOCES8, Rachel was thrilled to be one of the Artists in Residence at the renowned Wigmore Hall in 2019/2020. Alongside this, Rachel and Christopher Glynn released the world premiere of three previously unfinished Mozart sonatas as completed by Timothy Jones (2021). Their second disc together of three Beethoven Sonatas was released in March 2022. Recent recordings include a disc of solo repertoire along with a recording of C.P.E. Bach sonatas with fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout.

Performers

Tafelmusik orchestra, on period instruments
Directed by Rachel Podger

Program

Mozart Symphony No. 40 in g minor
Schubert Symphony no. 5 in B-flat

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