Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra – Louis Langree, conductor; Jeremy Denk, Piano. July 31, 2015.

Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra (Seat V16, $40).

Pre-Concert Recital – Orion Weiss, Piano.

Klavierstucke, Op. 118 (1893) by Brahms (1833-1897).

Program

Chaconne in D minor for piano left hand (1720/1877) by Bach (1685-1750) (trans.Brahms).

Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466 (1785) by Mozart (1756-1791).

Symphony No. 4 in E minor (1884-85) by Brahms.

Today’s program is more properly titled “Mostly Brahms.”  The entire program, including the pre-concert, lasted about 110 minutes.   Brahms was involved with every single work, while Mozart’s own contribution was less than 30 minutes.  In case one’s is wondering, the first movement cadenza in the Mozart concerto was by Brahms.  The annotator (Paul Schiavo) pointed out other rationale for how the program hangs together, such as the frequent use of minor keys, or how the pieces progress from one for a solo piano to piano/orchestra and finally for a full orchestra.

We heard the Chaconne piece played by Leon Fleisher in Toronto a few years back.  If I were to go back to my notes, I probably would have said something like “transcriptions from one instrument to another usually doesn’t usually work well as different instruments have different characteristics.”  Going back to my notes, I said “… it didn’t sound as good or natural compared to being played on a violin.”  If I were to make a comparison, I thought it worked much better today as the different lines were very well delineated.  Of course the percussive nature of the piano made some passages sound a bit disjoint.  It was overall quite enjoyable.

Of the many concertos Mozart wrote (close to thirty) only two are in the minor key.  Of course one can make the minor key sound sunny, and there are quite a few passages in this concerto that sounded that way.  Overall, though, it is more on the moody side, beginning with the orchestral statement at the start.

This orchestra introduction is my first encounter with the MMFO this season.  I went in with a rooting for them attitude, but was frankly disappointed.  Tentative, imprecise, uninspired were some of the adjectives that came to mind.  During the early moments when the pianist was having an ongoing dialog with the orchestra, I actually felt bad for the pianist as he tried to take the performance to a higher level.

The good news is that eventually he did.  Denk put in a well-structured and dynamic presentation.  Aided by the Program Notes, I rode along the ups and downs expressed by the composer and eventually let the music carry me along.

Denk played an encore that I would have guessed Bach as the lines were clear and the harmony traditional, except for the many rubatos.  Anne overheard someone saying it might have been composed by Faure.  Let’s just say one of us is very off.  In any case, I like Denk’s playing.  The Playbill writeup on him said he had performed with the New York Philharmonic before, but this was the first time I heard/heard of him.

I am quite familiar with the Brahms symphony, so have in my mind a “proper” way to deliver it.  Tonight I needed to make quite a bit of adjustments, including how small the orchestra is for such a big hall, but overall enjoyed it.  I was surprised how unfamiliar the fourth movement sounded, and attributed that to my always falling asleep after three movements.

The pre-concert was an intimate piece by Brahms (Intermezzo in A minor, Intermezzo in A major, Ballade in G minor, Intermezzo in F minor, Romanze in F major, and Intermesso in E-flat minor.)  The appreciation of the piece was greatly helped by the notes in the Program.

On the way home, we put on the Mozart concerto, performed by Malcolm Bilson on period instruments.  It sounded downright sunny.

We spent most of July in the Boston area.  We left Boston at around 10:30 am this morning and got to the Lincoln Center area around 4:30 pm, managing to find off-street free parking on a Friday afternoon.  We had time for coffee and a simple dinner before heading to the pre-concert.  The box office had some problem with locating my “will-call” ticket (misfiled, they said,) but things got squared away eventually.  Attendance was quite good (third tier was closed off,) but I wonder how many got discounted tickets like I did.