Exploring the music that was originally conceived as theatre music, before its metamorphosis into symphonies. The title Gli impresari refers to The Impresarios – i.e. the directors of the theatre troupes that Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy engaged to perform in his opera houses.

The period from 1772 onwards, when Karl Wahr was responsible for for the summer theatre programme at Esterháza, saw the peak of the multidisciplinary collaboration taking place between the court music directed by Haydn and companies engaged from outside. At the end of 1775 and the beginning of 1776, while Joseph Haydn was occupied in transforming his music for Collé’s comedy into a symphony for concert performance, Karl Wahr was enjoying enormous success with his theatrical entertainments in the ballroom at the theatre in Salzburg. It was there, on 3 January 1776, that Thamos, King of Egypt was staged, a heroic drama whose choruses, musicologists now believe, were composed by none other than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; for this Salzburg performance he also composed four instrumental entractes (recorded for this disc) as well as a melodrama and a Don Giovanni-esque descent into hell.