Sir Neville Marriner and Paul Lewis (Credit: Hillary Scott)

 

While the Mostly Mozart Festival prepares to open its season with Brahms, the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood served up a Saturday evening of Mozart, and nothing else. This is a prospect that didn't necessarily appeal to me in theory. To lead off with a major admission, I don't think of Mozart as one of my favorite composers; one certainly has to respect his genius and the beauty of his works, but I find he doesn't deliver the sort of emotional punch I often crave in a musical performance, which a listener is more likely to find in the great Romantics.

But once in a while, as on Saturday, I hear a performance that reminds me how unfair I've been to Mozart. The opportunity to luxuriate in the beauty and grace of his music is exquisite, even if it lacks the psychological challenge of a Shostakovich quartet.

Christian Zacharias, the German pianist and conductor, led the BSO from the keyboard, a trick of which I'm often skeptical. As with violinists and composers who think they can also conduct, the results are frequently poor. It's a little different, of course, when playing with a chamber orchestra (the BSO played with reduced numbers for its Mozart selections, as is now customary), and Zacharias is no dabbler; he is an excellent pianist and an excellent conductor, and if he wants to do both at once, so much the better.

Zacharias was remarkably free in his playing in the opening movement. His runs weren't always even, but his playing was richly expressive, and deeply intelligent. He played a rhapsodic cadenza of his own devising; stylistically appropriate and virtuosic and personal all at once, it was one of the best “original” cadenzas I've heard in a while. No less fine were the two ensuing movements—his touch positively glowed in the andante, and in the finale he achieved the perfect cheerful energy, finding an almost romantic strain near the end.

He stayed at the keyboard to play continuo for two Mozart arias with Sarah Connolly, CBE, the superb English mezzo. Connolly took the stage with poise, listened thoughtfully to the orchestral introduction, and had scarcely sung the first line of the concert aria “Ch'io mi scordi di te” before a lavish wedding party up the road began what sounded like an impressive display of fireworks. One of course has to give Connolly the benefit of the doubt and assume her artistry was superior, but alas, the rockets gave her a good fight in the volume department, unleashing their final salvo during the aria's closing bars. At Carnegie Hall, we put up with passing subway trains and police sirens; at Tanglewood it's fireworks. Go figure.

Her second aria, “Deh, per questo istante solo” from La Clemenza di Tito, went undisturbed, and was brilliant. Connolly might not have the most drop-dead-gorgeous, honey-kissed mezzo in the world, but she knows how to use her instrument. She floats so freely and gracefully through her upper register, turning every phrase with artistry and intelligence, that you almost forget she has a warm, powerful chest voice as well, until suddenly it crackles to life at the bottom of a line.

Back to conducting, this time without a piano, Zacharias gave an admirable reading of Mozart's “Prague” Symphony, No. 38. One of the reasons, I suspect, that I don't relish Mozart is the treatment his music so often gets—a pinky-in-the-air sort of effeteness has become almost standard, and while his work is certainly graceful it oughtn't sound flimsy. Zacharias's interpretation of this symphony was bright and tripping, of course, but it was also richly textured, and—believe it or not—muscular. The finale in particular had almost an inebriate joy.

 

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On Friday, Baiba Skride had played Mozart's great “Turkish” Violin Concerto, the fifth, also with Zacharias on the podium. This is one of the most important concerti in the violin's repertoire, though, in terms of technical challenge, not one of the most difficult.

So it was strange to hear Skride, a Queen Elizabeth Competition laureate, let so many impurities sneak into her playing. There was a lot of funny intonation, dropped notes, and the like—surprising lapses, on the whole. Still, Skride plays with a gleaming tone that suits this repertoire perfectly, and she conveyed a clear understanding of the piece—even if her technical preparation was suspect.

She played a second programmed piece with the orchestra, which is just about unheard of in concerts these days. It was the Rondo for violin and orchestra, K. 373, and it was, frankly, more of the same—very good playing with some very noticeable errors.

This turned out to be Schumann weekend, as well as Mozart weekend. Friday's symphony was Schumann's Second, and it got an outstanding performance from Zacharias and company. The opening placed clear peals of brass over a velvet bed of strings, and the peppery scherzo had just the right amount of spark, feeling energetic but not aggressive.

The andante was the star of this symphony, as it so often is—the BSO was pure honey, singing out the arching motif of the strings and ensuring that it would stick in the listeners' ears for hours. After this vision of bliss, the noble gallop of the finale seemed almost superfluous—almost.

 

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There might be no conductor more closely associated with Mozart today than Sir Neville Marriner, who led the BSO on Sunday afternoon. Now 91 years old, he still manages to stand for an entire concert, and gives a firm—if slightly odd-looking—beat.

Two familiar Mozart symphonies book-ended this program, and both were predictably excellent in more or less the same ways. Leading the way was No. 35 in D, the “Haffner” symphony, and ending  was No. 36 in C, “Linz.” Both were crisp and buoyant in their opening movements, then featured a beguiling andante, followed by a stately menuet and a grinning presto finale. A battle-tested formula, to be sure, but it speaks to the genius of both Mozart and Marriner that neither piece felt formulaic.

Sir Neville's Mozart is a little on the reserved side—it feels contained, cerebral, poised. It never slips out of his firm grasp. Pacing plays a major part—there is no fussing around with tempo in Marriner's conducting. He picks a tempo, and then he sticks to it, using other means to carve out a well-shaped interpretation.

If Sunday marked the end of a Mozart and Schumann mini-festival, it also marked the start of a Paul Lewis mini-festival. Lewis is widely regarded as one of our great pianists, particularly in the Classical repertoire, but he doesn't doesn't have quite the fanatical following of a Daniil Trifonov or a Lang Lang. He is all business, wearing only one uniform that I've seen—a grey linen shirt and black slacks. His recital on Tuesday night, presenting the last three of Beethoven's sonatas, promises to be a highlight of the Tanglewood summer.

On Sunday he played Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto. (I've always found it odd that Schumann finished only one piano concerto, seeing what a virtuoso he was himself; but then, Sibelius only wrote one violin concerto.) It's often observed that this piece is not as difficult as it sounds. For Lewis, it did not sound difficult at all; his playing was limpid, spacious, and completely free. It sounded as though he had done away with all pretense of effort, lest it get in the way of his phrasing. And yet, for all his lyrical ease at the keyboard, he has enough stormy intensity to pull off the mood swings that this piece requires.

It feels as though the BSO get better every time I hear them; under Marriner on Sunday they securely executed every technical demand, and showed showed countless colors and textures in their playing. They have had some dark times in the last decade, and after all of their trouble, to hear them sound this good is immensely gratifying.

 

 

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