Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra - Edward Gardner, conductor. August 1, 2009.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat U116, $30).

Program
Overture to Die Zauberflote, K. 620 (1791) by Mozart.
Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat major, K. 456 (1784) by Mozart.
Serande for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, Op. 31 (1943) by Britten.
Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major, K. 543 (1788) by Mozart.

Artists
Toby Spence, Tenor; Lawrence DiBello, Horn; Piotr Anderszewski, Piano.

This was the first MM concert we attended despite having lived in the area for 30 years. I guess there were no compelling reasons to go to one; the concerts occur during the summer and we are usually too tired from the regular season to want to make it into NYC. While the programs tend to contain works by other composers, an all-Mozart concert is a bit much for me: another reason for my general lack of excitement.

We got half-price tickets from Goldstar.com (we did have to pay $6.50 each for processing fee). The concert was quite well attended, there were many people outside looking to buy tickets. Our seats were quite good. They also had seats on the stage.

The overture was well-done and (unfortunately) set expectations that were not met by the rest of the program. The orchestra was precise, the dynamic range was good, and the music had a bounciness to it that was enjoyable.

I was not familiar with the piano concerto. At 30 minutes it is on the long side for Mozart. Anderszewski's performance is okay but not inspiring. Anne and I agree he pounds on the instrument a bit much. The performance reminds me of the one by Mustonen, described as quirky by a critic. The concerto contains the traditional movements Allegro vivace, Andante un poco sostenuto, and Allegro vivace.

Britten's Seranade was written with his companion Peter Pears in mind. It is an interesting construction utilizing diverse poems written by different authors. The piece is bookended by a prologue and epilogue played by the horn, with the epilogue played off stage. The horn player left during the last movement (the Sonnet), bringing with him the mute that we never saw him use. The movements of the work are (i) Pastoral, text by Charles Cotton; (ii) Nocturne, Lord Tennyson; (iii) Elegy, William Blake; (iv) Dirge, anonymous "Lyke-Wake" Dirge; (v) Hymn, Ben Jonson; and (vi) Sonnet, John Keats. One feels that the horn player (the principal horn of the orchestra) was out of his league. While he probably got most/all of the notes, the sound was quite muddled. The tenor is a young Englishman. His voice projected quite well, but the falsetto was a bit too obvious.

The Symphony was also unfamiliar. The program notes describes this as the least commonly played of the "Final Trilogy" written by Mozart during the summer of 1788. By this time the orchestra's playing was not nearly as precise as it was at the beginning. Sounds were muddled, precision was off, and the crispness that one would like to hear had by-and-large disappeared. Perhaps the program (three 30-minutes pieces and the overture) was a bit long and the artists' couldn't hold their concentration that long? The symphony's four movements are Adagio - Allegro; Andante con moto; Menuetto: Allegreto; and Finale: Allegro.

I don't have much to say about the conductor other than he is another young Englishman.

At the end of the day, what matters is that it was still an enjoyable evening. However, this concert is definitely in the take-it-or-leave-it category. Despite our plans to travel during the month, we may still be able to make a couple of additional concerts. Will we? Stay tuned.