In German-speaking countries, England was known for hundreds of years as the “land without music,” but such great composers as Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Mendelssohn spent time in London. The latter was largely responsible for the Bach revival of the 19th century, but the most important link between old J.S. and the post-Beethoven period was the relationship of the young Mozart with Johann Christian Bach. At the age of eight, Wolfgang spent time literally learning on the knee of J.C. while sojourning in the British capital.

This weekend at the Mostly Mozart Festival, Maestro Louis Langree explored works written in London that illustrated the symbiotic relationship among J.C. Bach, Mozart, and Haydn. The experience of hearing J.C. Bach is a constantly surprising one. Listening to his Symphony in G minor Op. 6, No. 6, I was struck that this composer should be much better known. Is it the shadow of his father or the friendship with Mozart that keeps his light under a bushel? In any case, this performance was notable for highlighting the underlying angst of the piece, the sort of inner mood swing that turns an exceptionally ordered work dark and disturbing. There is only one other composer who could write this way effectively – Mozart.

So what were you accomplishing when you were eight? Mozart wrote, among other things, the concert aria “Va, dal furor portata” on a text of Metastasio. The work is surprisingly grand and heroic and calls into question its own authenticity – perhaps Leopold had more than just a hand in the creative process here. It is tempting to describe tenor Russell Thomas as young, but, in the context of this composer, youth is a relative term. Mr. Thomas has, unquestionably, a very big voice – he is a very big man – and he filled Avery Fisher with its zaftig timbre seemingly effortlessly. He is, however, sorely in need of coaching to rein in his maddeningly peripatetic flights of pitch fluctuation.

When Haydn eventually traveled to London, he turned to the much younger Mozart for advice. The junior composer was concerned that Papa would not be appreciated there and that he did not speak the language. Haydn replied, “All the world understands my language.” Certainly Louis Langree understands, leading an ebullient and infectiously entertaining Symphony No. 104, subtitled “London.” Especially pleasing was the briskness of the tempos, a hallmark of this concert as a whole. The liveliness of the Haydn minuet was dizzying, and the piece was imbued with the most refreshing of brio.

This was the big Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, playing at a high level of intensity and well-enunciated thickness. Their accompaniment to Garrick Ohlsson’s Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 was close to flawless, yet never obtrusive. Mr. Ohlsson dazzled, as he is wont to do, performing Beethoven’s original cadenza so powerfully that first a murmur and then hearty applause broke out in the audience.

Unlike the other three pieces, the Beethoven was not written in London, but tracing the vital connection among these four composers places in bas relief the importance not just of London but also of Vienna. There was tremendous interplay among these four geniuses, despite Beethoven’s remark that he never learned anything from Haydn. Mozart was the inspiration and the guide, soon leaving the elder Haydn behind as he embarked alone on the most important journey of all.

***

For many of us, Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas form the cornerstone of Western civilization. In the era of the recording, there have been several fine compendia, ranging from the clarity of Schnabel to the intellectualism of the elder Serkin, from the cosmology of Kempff to the romanticism of Backhaus. For me, the best of all traversals was Claudio Arrau’s. Here is the ideal combination of sweetness and power, humor and tragedy, human and divine. Technically, the set is brilliant but magnificently understated, an accurate mirror of the Chilean’s signature relaxed style.

Now the star pupil of Arrau, Mr. Ohlsson, has traversed his first Beethoven cycle, ending just this week with the last of eight recitals in Verbier, Switzerland. After having performed with the Mostly Mozart Orchestra on both Friday and Saturday evenings, Mr. Ohlsson’s next assignment was an hour on Saturday night at the Kaplan Penthouse for the Mostly Mozart series “A Little Night Music.” The works: Sonatas Nos. 30 and 31.

Mr. Ohlsson settled in with the air of the master and the touch of the thoroughly prepared pupil. The most important lesson Arrau taught him was to let gravity do most of the work, and Mr. Ohlsson, who is a rather large gentleman, has discovered the ability to proclaim loudly without expending much physical energy. This night he eschewed the grandiloquent statement for the much more expressive sotto voce, keeping the volume level down and the intensity level up.

Perhaps it was the room that influenced this exceptional artist to sing so softly. He established the unplugged atmosphere at the outset by telling us all to feel free to drink our wine while he played. But once the music making began, no one dared.

Op. 109 began in sublimity and never let up. The Adagio espressivo was breathtaking. Arrau once wrote of the “musical language where trills become a trembling of the soul and arpeggios reach out into the infinite” and here was that vocabulary laid out before us all. By contrast, the prestissimo was incredibly forceful, made all the more so by the quietude that heralded it. And the beginning of the final movement, before the variations take over, was so contemplative as to be transporting.

While marveling at Mr. Ohlsson’s effortless cross-hand technique in the Op. 110 Allegro, I remembered Arrau advising never to simplify fingering because “Beethoven wants the listener to hear the difficulty in the music.” This hour-long primer on the relationship between prodigious technique and inspirational communication ended with a measured and cerebral fugue, with Garrick Ohlsson seeming to say that it is all there in the music, just waiting for the listener to let it out.

This Week at the Mostly Mozart Festival

Tonight, 8 p.m.
Alice Tully Hall
The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra will perform an all-Mozart program.

August 16 & 17, 8 p.m.
Avery Fisher Hall
Violinist Joshua Bell with Louis Langree and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra will perform works by Schnittke, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky.

August 19 & 20, 8 p.m.
Avery Fisher Hall
Pianist Stephen Hough with Osmo Vanska and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra will perform works by Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert.