Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Andrew Manze, conductor; Steven Osborne, piano. August 1, 2014.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat O08, $39.50).

Program

Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major ,  Op. 73 (“Emperor”) (1809) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Symphony No. 104 in D major (“London”) (1795) by Haydn (1732-1809).

The Playbill has an interesting observation that both compositions represent the last of the composers in that particular category.  It goes on to imply there is something special about the music.  My first instinct was how can that be?  I can see how a composer would pay special attention to a particular composition (Mozart’s requiem, for instance, is a “definite maybe.”)  However, I am quite sure Beethoven didn’t set out to say “this will be my last piano concerto, so I will do something special about it, and I won’t be able to write anything better than this.”  Neither would Haydn say, “I should stop at this nice round number of 104.”

Now that I have gotten that rant out of the way, let me return to my original intent of going to these concerts.  People should try to take things easy in the summer, and that was the thinking behind my purchasing three concerts to this season’s M|M Festival when discount tickets became available on Goldstar.  Given my original travel plans for July and August, I was happy that I could squeeze them in.  Tonight’s concert is less than a week after we returned from Europe, and I am going to the next one the day before I leave for Hong Kong, and the third one the day I come back.  I was counting on some snoozing time during the concerts, and am happy to report that at least for tonight I stayed fully awake for the whole time.

This was the third time this year that we heard the Emperor Concerto.  And I still enjoyed it.  The annotator David Wright provided some interesting observations on technical details that were quite useful as we followed along.  Particularly insightful was how he described this “stumbling over its own feet getting started” at the beginning of the last movement due to the syncopation.  That and other insightful remarks added a lot to my appreciation of tonight’s performance.

This was Steven Osborne’s debut performance at Mostly Mozart.  We did see him last year, in Singapore, of all places, playing Britten’s piano concerto.  Perhaps it was a case of nerves, there was a little bit of “stumbling” when he started the piece.  A pianist must train himself/herself to delineate the multiple lines in the music, but sometimes I felt his two hands were out of sync.  His performance improved as the music moved along.

Actually I really liked how he played the relatively short second movement.  Slow movements tend to be less challenging technically, and the artists must hold the audience (at least the shallower ones in the crowd, like me) with their musicality.  The way Osborne interpreted it really spoke to me.

The last time I heard this was in late June, with Yefim Bronfman as the soloist.  Both Bronfman and Osborne used a Steinway, and I would venture to guess it was the same instrument.  Interestingly they produced very different sounds.  Bronfman’s was richer, and Osborne had a wider dynamic range.  I wonder if that’s attributable to how they approach the piano, or is it because of the acoustics (our seats, location of piano).

Some readers think I can get too critical in these blogs; and there is much truth to that.  On the other hand, I am not perceptive enough to say I like A for the following reasons, B for this different set, and C yet for this third set of reasons; and they are all great.  I can say, however, I know relatively how well I enjoyed the three performances I have heard so far this year (Orpheus/Tsujii, New York Phlharmonic/Bronfman, and Mostly Mozart/Osborne.)  I leave it to the reader to guess.

I am not even sure I have heard 10 of Haydn’s 104 symphonies.  If I have, I certainly can’t tell you which ones.  One characteristic was that the ones I have heard are all easy to get.  The “London,” however, is quite a bit more complex than anything I remember.  David Wright’s notes again make the music easier to follow and to appreciate.  Well, I do think he goes a bit overboard sometimes, such as comparing the opening 5^th and 4^th intervals with Beethoven Fifth’s “fate knocking.”  Also, I didn’t quite get the “reluctance in putting down the pen” and the “unprecedented thematic unity,” statement attributed to Haydn’s biographer H. C. Robbins Landon.

The London Symphony was written by Haydn in 1795, while Beethoven started his First around 1799.  It was interesting to note that at (probably) its most complex, Haydn’s symphonies still sound simpler than Beethoven’s earlier symphonies.  There, my contribution to music analysis.

The symphony has four movements: Adagio – Allegro, Andante, Menuet: Allegro, and Finale: Spiritoso.

We saw Andrew Manze at last year’s M|M festival.  I don’t remember the performance well, but remember enjoying it.  (A re-reading of the blog entry confirms it, and that I have seen him on three prior occasions.)  He conducts with quite a bit of motion, often favoring facing the orchestra sideways (from where I sat.)  There were a few precision problems which perhaps is to be expected.  For this evening I was sure he asked the second violins to come in loud.  As someone who played in that section, I appreciate that.  On the other hand, I thought it was a bit much.

Overall, however, tonight was an enjoyable evening.  Anne helped out in Jersey City today, I met up with her at around 4 pm, and we left for New York at around 4:30 pm.  Despite the busy traffic, we still managed to have a leisurely dinner at Legend (a Sichuan restaurant on 72^nd.)  It is only when we got to the concert hall that we remembered they had a pre-concert at 7 pm!  We will forgo dinner if necessary next time.  The drive home was straight-forward.