by James Rosenfield
Osmo Vanska, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra (Photo: New York Times)
A dozen years ago, Mostly Mozart had become moribund, a snooze through the sultry summer months. Then, Louis Langree became Music Director in 2002, abetted by Lincoln Center Artistic Director Jane Moss, and what a transformation followed! In 2014, Mostly Mozart abounds in breathtaking performances, and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra sounds like the greatest chamber band in the world.
The single most emblematic performance of the festival so far might be Anthony Manze's historically informed interpretation of Haydn's final symphony, the London. Everything sparkled. And something new was revealed (at least to me): Beethoven clearly used the last movement as the prototype for the swirling finale of his Seventh Symphony. Scottish pianist Stephen Osborne played Beethoven's Emperor Concerto in the concert's first half, a non-thundering performance that persuasively brought out the gentle elements of this mighty work.
A pre-concert recital featured Mozart's oboe-centric Serenade for Winds in E-flat major, beautifully executed by the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra winds and brass. Osborne returned later that night to the Kaplan Penthouse for A Little Night Music with an all-Schubert program, featuring rarities such as 13 Variations on a Theme by Anselm Hüttenbrenner (who?) and the later but equally obscure Andante in A major, D.604. Osborne followed with the more familiar Impromptus 1-4, which he described as "heart-dissolving".
August 4 featured the Emerson String Quartet at Alice Tully Hall, where they performed Haydn's Quartet in G major, Op. 33, No. 5 as a pre-concert piece, followed by more Haydn in the main program (G minor, Op. 20, No. 3). They followed with Mozart's Haydn Quartet in E-Flat major (K. 428), and Mozart's sublime Clarinet Quintet. The Emersons were (surprisingly) off in their intonation and sounded a little tired, but were enlivened by the physically expressive presence of Paul Watkins, their new cellist. Swedish clarinetist Martin Fröst joined them for the Quintet: simply put, Fröst plays the clarinet like a nightingale sings. Fröst returned later that night for A Little Night Music, performing Mozart's Kegelstatt Trio with violist Antoine Tamestit and pianist Shai Wosner. Who but Mozart could write for two instruments in the same register — viola and clarinet — with such clear differentiation? Fröst also played Debussy's Première rhapsodie and the Poulenc Clarinet Sonata, originally premiered by Benny Goodman.
A pre-concert recital on August 6 featured violinists Christian Tetzlaff and Caroline Goulding playing the Leclair Sonata for two violins in D major and selections from Bartok's 44 Duos: pure essence of Bartok. During the main concert, Tetzlaff and the Festival Orchestra (led by Langrée) beautifully played Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 1 using a good deal of vibrato; Tetzlaff's tone seemed mellower than it has in the past. The concert began with Schnittke's Moz-Art à la Haydn, a clever little pastiche for strings that began in darkness and ended with the musicians leaving the stage one by one, Farewell Symphony-style. The overture to Haydn's opera L’isola disabitata began the concert's second half, an intense piece that seemed to presage the Don Giovanni overture that would follow eight years later. The concert ended with Mozart's Prague Symphony, three perfect movements played somewhat routinely.
The August 8 pre-concert star was trumpeter Philip Cobb, accompanied by pianist Joseph Turrin. Cobb is a prodigy, named principal of the London Symphony at age 21. The only memorable piece was Purcell's Trumpet Sonata in D Major, but Cobb's playing left an indelible impression.
The concert itself began with conductor Osmo Vänskä literally bounding into Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. He conducted like a tensile being, about to strike (benignly) at any moment. The symphony came across as lovely, rather than wise-guy or parodistic.
The audience was then treated to another prodigy, pianist Yuja Wang. Well-known for her costumes, Wang emerged wearing a sort of yellow mermaid outfit, long and form-fitting. She played the Shostakovich Concerto for Trumpet and Piano sounding like a young Martha Argerich; Cobb, standing on a platform at the back of the orchestra, was equally amazing. The Festival Orchestra strings bit hard into the piece without tearing holes in it.
The concert ended with Beethoven's Eighth Symphony. This was not an historically informed performance: the tempos were not terribly fleet, until the hell-bent-for-leather final movement. Vänskä even brought out some stormy colors, despite the fact that the 8th is usually known as the sunniest of the Beethoven symphonies. Still, he showed absolute mastery of Beethoven's sound world. And absolute mastery of the orchestra!