Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Orchestra 1 (Seat
P106, $70.)
Program
Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major, K.482 (1785) by
Mozart (1756-91).
Mass in C minor, Great, K.427 (1782-83) by Mozart.
Artists
Jennifer Zetlan, soprano; Jennifer Johnson Cano,
Mezzo-soprano; Paul Appleby, Tenor; Joshua Hopkins, Baritone.
Joseph Flummerfelt, Director, New York Choral Artists
After dropping off some items at church for the garage
sale on Saturday, we went to the Yangs and got a ride from them into the
city. Being a summer Friday afternoon,
traffic was quite bad. We navigated
through side streets of Jersey City to get in the Holland Tunnel, and then had
to crawl along for a while because of an accident on West Side Highway. The trip took over two hours, and we only had
15 minutes or so to gulp down a sandwich purchased at the Expresso Bar in Avery
Fisher Hall.
Other than a few “special events” scheduled for next week,
this is the final series for the season.
Ax, being the artist-in-residence for next year, is a natural pick as
the solo artist. Most people think of a
mass as choral music accompanied by an orchestra, thus I find it a bit
interesting that the final program of the season does not have the orchestra
play a dominant role. One could
psycho-analyze this in depth, or just sit back and enjoy the program, which I
chose to do.
I have always enjoyed Ax’s playing. Technically flawed sometimes, but the
musicality always came across. This is
the first Mozart concerto I heard him play, though. The Program Notes mentions this interesting
correlation between Mozart’s popularity and the number of piano concertos he
wrote during any given year. Makes sense
as Mozart wrote the concertos mostly with himself as the soloist in mind. Three were written in 1785, a decline from
prior years – and Mozart was not quite 30 years old. I often make the remark that Mozart’s music
comes across as a bit repetitious, this concerto does not. Actually the first two movements (Allegro and
Andante) sounded downright un-Mozartian to me.
The Allegro [Rondo] third movement did exhibit a lot of Mozart characteristics;
however, it was a delight, especially at the relatively fast tempo taken. Ax played his own cadenzas, since none that
Mozart wrote survived.
Of all the piano concertos I recall having heard in Avery
Fisher Hall, this one had the best balance between the soloist and the
orchestra. That probably had more to do
with the seats we got rather than the actual performance itself. Anne at first complained the piano was too
loud, but I convinced her that this was one of the few times a live performance
sounded like a CD playing. Overall it
was a great performance: the audience certainly thought so, with the enthusiastic
applause at the conclusion, and the attempt of some to do so after the first
movement. If this had happened a few
years ago, I would have doubted myself and wondered what did they hear that was
so remarkable that I didn’t. Now I am
more confident in attributing their behavior to being star-struck. The sound was nice and crisp (the way I like
Mozart being played), the balance was great (perhaps due to our seats), the
virtuosity impressive (especially for a Mozart concerto), the orchestra was
competent (I even remarked all they had to do was to come in early and go over
a few passages, and they would be ready), so what’s not to like? For me the disappointment was the overall
architecture that Ax was so good at didn’t come across as clearly as I had
wished.
The Program Notes had some interesting background about
the mass. It posited that Mozart wrote
it to get on the good side of his father Leopold since Mozart married Constanze
without Leopold’s blessing. He did not
complete the work either because Leopold seemed to accept Constanze, or because
Mozart was too busy. Evidently many
scholars tried to complete the work by splicing in the missing parts; tonight’s
performance, however, mostly kept to the original. Thus we have Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus,
and Benedictus qui venit; and some of the sections are incomplete. A expert in masses may complain, but it
worked fine as far as I am concerned, even though the ending seemed a bit
abrupt.
The soloists are all on the young side, and a couple of
them are products of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. It turns out we had seen several of them at
the Metropolitan Opera: Zetland as Xenia in Boris Godunov, Johnson Cano as Wellunde (a Rhinemaiden) in
Das Rheingold and Gotterdammerung, and Appleby as Demetrius in The Enchanted
Island. Hopkins actually didn't have a solo part: he only sang as part of the quartet at the end. I didn’t remember any of them,
probably because they didn’t have the lead roles, and also because I am not
familiar with the vocal artists scene. The
balance between soloists, chorus, and orchestra was great; the soprano choir
voice sounded a bit strained at times, though. The only detraction was Johnson Cano tended to
move around a lot more than the other soloists, which was slightly
disconcerting. One expects a bit more
harmony in stage presence as well, and wonders if the movements are intended to
upstage others. It is especially
unfortunate when this is the first thing about the performance that comes to
mind.
I came away relatively pleased with the overall program,
Anne came away saying she really enjoyed it.
Perhaps I should listen to Mozart more often. In any case, we were glad Shirley made the
trip with us.
The relatively straightforward New York Times Review
spent as much ink on the length of the New York Philharmonic season as it did
on the performance.
No comments:
Post a Comment