›Through unwavering diligence may you achieve Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands‹ – so wished Graf Ferdinand von Waldstein for Ludwig van Beethoven in November 1792, shortly before his departure to Vienna. Waldstein did finance Beethoven’s upcoming educational journey, initially with the goal to have him taught by Mozart. Mozart’s early death foiled that plan, which is why Haydn became Beethoven’s teacher instead. Andreas Spering and Capella Augustina open this year’s Haydn-Festival with Mozart’s operatic ›Prague Symphony‹ from 1787 and a Haydn sampler from 1791, the opening of which calls forth the raging Beethoven more than his future teacher. During the Bonn carnival of the same year, Graf Waldstein commissioned his first composition from Beethoven: ›Music for a ballet of knights‹. This year’s commissioned work for the Haydn-Festival – No. 4 of a series of 10 premieres – will be a sound creation by Nikolaus Brass.