{"id":6908,"date":"2012-08-22T11:43:03","date_gmt":"2012-08-22T15:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=6908"},"modified":"2012-09-08T17:28:14","modified_gmt":"2012-09-08T21:28:14","slug":"mostly-mozart%e2%80%99s-genial-firebrand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=6908","title":{"rendered":"Mostly Mozart\u2019s Genial Firebrand"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

I ran into Mostly Mozart\u2019s music director, Louis Langr\u00e9e, prior to Yannick N\u00e9zet-S\u00e9guin\u2019s concert that I reviewed last week, and told him how much I was looking forward to hearing the Lutos\u0142awski and Bart\u00f3k works he was conducting a week later. His eyes widened and he smiled broadly, saying how much he loved their music. New Yorkers are used to this genial maestro\u2019s elegant performances of baroque and classical repertoire, but now I suspect that Langr\u00e9e\u2019s restrictive MM connection has caused us to lose out on a more well-rounded musician than we realized.<\/p>\n

The conductor\u2019s demonic fervor in Lutos\u0142awski\u2019s Bart\u00f3k-flavored Musique fun\u00e8bre <\/em>(1958) was palpable. No less so was the surprisingly rich tone that he drew from the MM Festival Orchestra strings \u2013 no non-vibrato nonsense here! Equally stirring was Bart\u00f3k\u2019s Piano Concerto No. 3 (1945), with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet in the solo seat. The Third was once thought inferior to the composer\u2019s more aggressive First and Second; program annotator Paul Schiavo\u2019s descriptive weasel words are \u201cuser-friendly,\u201d placed in quotes so we won\u2019t accuse him personally of condescension. True, Bart\u00f3k was dying of leukemia and tailored the concerto for his wife to play when he was gone. But its standing in the composer\u2019s oeuvre <\/em>is no less distinguished than the first two: It\u2019s just different.<\/p>\n

Gy\u00f6rgy Kro\u00f3, in his insightful A Guide to Bart\u00f3k<\/em>, refers to the \u201cfree, airy atmosphere of morning\u201d in the concerto and \u201cthe chattering chirping birds, meadows and fields seen in the bright spring sunlight\u201d \u2013 a change from the characteristically Bart\u00f3kian \u201cnight music\u201d slow movements of many earlier works. Kro\u00f3 draws an analogy \u201cto the work of the greatest of geniuses, the graceful lightness of the work composed by Mozart on his death-bed.\u201d Continuing his Mozart analogy, he compares the finales of both Mozart\u2019s and Bart\u00f3k\u2019s final piano concertos: \u201cBoth works seem to dance and soar in a strange state of euphoria towards eternity. . . .\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Bart\u00f3k certainly did under Bavouzet and Langr\u00e9e, zipping along joyously with breathless delight \u2013 certainly more vivace <\/em>than the last two performances I\u2019ve heard in concert, by the mummified Radu Lupu and anemic Andr\u00e1s Schiff, and equaling my favorite recording, by Julius Katchen and Istv\u00e1n Kert\u00e9sz. Only the cackling woodwinds seemed underplayed. The composer did not live to orchestrate the last 17 bars of the Third, leaving the task to his student, Tibor Serly. Perhaps for this reason, Langr\u00e9e felt free to add a bass drum to the final chord, \u00e0 la <\/em>Ravel\u2019s Piano Concerto in G. Very effective.<\/p>\n

Following intermission, the maestro turned in an impeccable Mozart 39th. Makes me look forward to the coming season.<\/p>\n