THE MOZARTEAN EXPERIENCE 2017 / ADDO Chamber Orchestra / Review

THE MOZARTIAN EXPERIENCE 2017

ADDO Chamber Orchestra

Esplanade Recital Studio

Friday (17 February 2017)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 February 2017 with the title "Fun journey through Mozart's life and works".

The ADDO Chamber Orchestra's Mozartean Experience was a sequel to last year's successful concert which had the flavour of a “show and tell” class. A programme sheet given to the audience was designed like a tabloid daily, but the surprise came in lieu of traditional programme notes.

Seconds before conductor Clarence Tan gave his first down-beat, a bewigged blonde dressed in period costume gatecrashed the proceedings. It was Constanze Weber, widow of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who had travelled through time from 1791 to address a 21^st century Singaporean audience on the great Austrian composer's lives and times. Italian singer-actress Sabrina Zuber played such an irrepressible host with her comedic asides that she almost stole the show.

It was the music, however, which prevailed. First up was Antonio Salieri's short Sinfonia Veneziana, which the orchestra warmed up to with some degree of tentativeness. The ensemble comprising just 11 string players backed up by four wind players initially produced a raw and dry sound, but this soon improved in a hurry.

Constanze refuted the notion that Salieri was Mozart's rival and mortal enemy. Instead they were supportive colleagues with a common vision of making good music. As posterity had it, Mozart was gifted with more memorable tunes, like those in his Third and Fourth Horn Concertos, both in the key of E flat major.

Also introduced was Mozart's horn-playing friend Joseph Leutgeb, whose daytime job was that of a cheese-monger. Returning as soloist from the last Mozartean experience was young French hornist Alan Kartik Jairamin from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, who followed up his helpful demonstration of basic horn techniques with confident showings of both works.

He brought out a warm, burnished sound that highlighted the music's lyricism, and then went all virtuoso mode for the cadenzas. His reading of the better-known Fourth Concerto with its hunting romp of a finale proved a big hit with the audience, which lapped up his every turn and phrase.

To complete the evening's E flat major fare was the Symphony No.84 by Joseph Haydn, one of Mozart's teachers and the mentor who predicted his future greatness. The orchestra which had accompanied the horn concertos very well continued their good work under conductor Tan, now sporting a powdered wig (a la the movie Amadeus).

Jokes aside, this was a very credible performance of a rarely heard work. Its solemn opening soon gave way to an Allegro which bubbled ever so animatedly, fully conveying the humour typical of the composer. The slow movement was taken a a goodly pace, followed by a somewhat ungainly Scherzo and Trio, tinged with an infectious rusticity. Although the finale started with a hint of unsteadiness, this was smoothened out with a mercurial run to an exciting close.

For its next concert on 31 May, ADDO Chamber Orchestra turns its sights on another composing great – Ludwig van Beethoven.

THE MOZARTIAN EXPERIENCE / ADDO Chamber Orchestra / Review

THE MOZARTIAN EXPERIENCE

ADDO Chamber Orchestra

Esplanade Recital Studio

Thursday (25 February 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 27 February 2016 with the title "A light-hearted homage to Mozart".

If one wondered why this concert was not titled The Mozart Experience, that was because it included music that was known during Mozart's era rather than exclusively by the Austrian composer himself. It began with the Sinfonia to Italian Domenico Cimarosa's popular comic opera Il Matrimonio Secreto (The Secret Marriage).

The overture opened with a fanfare very similar to that in Mozart's The Magic Flute, and the busy string flourishes that follow took after the master's wit himself. Conductor Clarence Tan kept the  pacing water-tight, best exhibited by the strings and a pair of flutes. Even if some winds had wayward moments, the buffo aspects were never lost as the music raced to a breathless end.

Young Filipino soprano Angela Cortez then joined to sing Mozart's well-known motet Exsultate Jubilate, a virtuosic showpiece she did not seem totally comfortable with. She has a pleasing voice and good diction which worked well for the slower languorous bits, but had some difficulty with the runs. Nevertheless, she made a good impression of Handel's slow Lascia Chio Pianga from the opera Rinaldo that followed.

Would it be better for her to have started with the Handel aria, essentially a lament, before moving to the flashier Mozart? Chronologically it would have made more sense, and the fact that Handel's operatic music was well-known to Mozart and not the other way round. In both works, the orchestra displayed sensitivity with the most discreet of accompaniments.       

French horn soloist Alan Kartik Jairamin, from the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, is one performer who has no confidence issues. He brought out a big, warm burnished tone in two Mozart horn concertos, shining brightest in the slow movement of the Second Concerto in E flat major (K.417). Its hunting horn Rondo finale was simply a joy, having to nimbly jump through a series of musical hoops.

The First Concerto in D major (K.412) brought out more of the same, except this work was in just two movements including another animated Rondo. This was followed by a show-and-tell session that truly engaged the audience. Kartik's humour in demonstrating playing notes on a natural horn (without valves) and a garden hose fitted with funnel and mouthpiece was greeted with much mirth and hilarity. His performance of the Rondo in D for hosepipe and orchestra is destined for YouTube notoriety.

The concert closed with Mozart's Symphony No.35 in D major, also known as the Haffner Symphony. The earlier discipline wielded by Tan's baton was immediately apparent in the vigorous opening, which was tautly knitted and driven with a firm rhythmic thrust. The slow movement weathered rough spots from the horns and was saved by the finesse of the string playing.

The Minuet exuded courtly grace, and one will note the subtle phrasing at the beginning of the finale, which opened quietly under the voice and then went for the jugular. The febrile feeling of storm and stress, expressive devices popularised during the classical age, was well brought out as the work closed on a head of steam. ADDO Chamber Orchestra's take on Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony on 5 May should be worth catching.

All photographs by courtesy of the ADDO Chamber Orchestra.