Watch Naxos Scenic Musical Journeys Italy Ravenna, Venice, Faenza

The tour starts in Northern Italy, in Ravenna, once the capital of the Roman Emperor Honorius, who moved there from Milan with his court in C.E. 402. The place is famous for its mosaics. The tour also takes us to Faenza, famous for its majolica ware, known as faience, and to the great Basilica of San Marco in Venice and its Carnival. The music for this tour of Italy is by Mozart and includes his two Flute Concertos, written for a patron during a visit to Mannheim in 1777-78. The Andante, K.315, is thought to date from the same period. Mozart had made three extended Italian tours between 1771 and 1773, and his father Leopold had hoped that his family might be able to settle there if a position could be found for his son. Northern Italy had become part of the Hapsburg Empire, but attempts to find a place in Milan or Florence were unsuccessful. 1777 found him again anxious to find a position away from his native Salzburg, but it was only in 1781 that he was able to make a break with his patron, the Archbishop of Salzburg, thereafter settling in Vienna for the last decade of his life.