Víkingur Ólafsson explores the interplay between light and shadow in Mozart’s music. Ever since his début at the 2018 Ruhr Piano Festival, the Icelandic pianist has pursued a brilliant career. In his new programme, “Mozart and his Contemporaries”, he not only includes his favorite works by the Salzburg genius, but features them in dialogue with further compositions by Haydn, C. P. E. Bach, Galuppi, and Cimarosa. Ólafsson’s selection of repertoire is mainly from the 1780s, and it challenges the cliché of Mozart as a continually jovial child prodigy. “I find those ten years in Mozart’s life and output particularly fascinating,” Ólafsson remarks. “In that phase he not only brought the classical tradition to its apogee, but he also subtly undermined it. The shadows are darker; the nuances and ambiguities are more profound.”