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
21st 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.
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