Seated beside little Wolfgang, aged just eight, was the cellist Gian Battista Cirri, aged forty. He was the music director to the Duke of Gloucester, the brother of King George III, who was celebrating his twenty-sixth birthday that day. The concert, organised by Leopold Mozart, was attended by more than two hundred people for the occasion.

From the window of the concert hall, one could see the wind rustling through the foliage of the plane trees in St James’s Park. Gian Battista had recently arrived in London from Paris, where his first works had been published, including a ‘Symphony’ performed at the famous ‘Concert spirituals’.

His association with Cirri influenced Mozart’s compositional style. The Salzburg composer admired the Italian’s work so much that he performed it and adopted similar musical structures in his early works, including several duets and cello sonatas.