RELATIVELY MOZART / PAUL LEWIS PLAYS MOZART PIANO CONCERTO 25 / Review

RELATIVELY MOZART

Donald Law, Piano

NAFA Wind Ensemble

Esplanade Recital Studio

Monday (13 February 2023)

 

PAUL LEWIS PLAYS

MOZART PIANO CONCERTO 25

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Thursday (16 February 2023)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 20 February 2023 with the title "Three servings of Mozart's Piano Concerto No.25".

 

Mozart wrote some 27 piano concertos, but what were the odds of encountering the same concerto performed three times within the same week? The concerto in question was Piano Concerto No.25 in C major (K.503), which garnered the attention of Singaporean Donald Law and Briton Paul Lewis (twice) in two different but equally engaging programmes.

 

The first performance was in an idiomatic arrangement for winds by Malaysian pianist-composer Wong Chee Yean, with Law accompanied by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Wind Ensemble conducted by Dutch wind specialist Joost Flach. The plangent sonorities of woodwinds and brass could easily overwhelm any solo instrument but this combo of eleven players - pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, French horns and bassoons, and double bass - were kept well in check.

 

This allowed the highly musical personality of Law to shine, impressing with crisply articulated  fingerwork and a singing tone. The effect was that of fine chamber music, with the martial strains of outer movements tempered by his lyrical restraint. When virtuosity was demanded, he also duly delivered. The choice of Hungarian pianist Lili Kraus’ cadenza for the first movement, which had the cheek of incorporating the La Marseillaise (French national anthem) near its end, was inspired.

The concert also saw Law playing Mozart’s Sonata in A major (K.331) which delighted with a familiar set of variations and the famous Rondo Alla Turca (Turkish Rondo). As a bonus, the ensemble was joined by four members of the special-needs Purple Symphony – a flautist and three percussionists – for a rousing version of that romping rondo.

 

Then there was the pair of performances with Lewis partnered by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by American conductor Robert Spano. Little was spared in Mozart’s original orchestration which had in addition to strings and winds, a pair of trumpets and timpani, providing the music with a festive and celebratory feel.

Photo: Chrispics + / Singapore Symphony Orchestra

 

Like Law, Lewis revelled in the solo part’s technically demanding passages which can easily get embedded within the busy orchestral partnership. Lewis played his teacher-mentor Alfred Brendel’s first movement cadenza, which also quoted La Marsaillaise, albeit a secondary motif (which Debussy used in his piano prelude Feux d’artifice), but at its beginning. What is the big deal about La Marsaillaise? That was because many listeners thought Mozart’s repetitive second subject to resemble that patriotic French tune by Rouget de Lisle.

 

Ultimately it was Lewis’ more free-wheeling interpretation, which included skillful ornamentations and added piano chords in loud tutti sections, which tipped the balance in his favour. Law was, however, in no way a lesser musician. As an encore, Lewis’ choice of Schubert’s brooding Allegretto in C minor, lovingly voiced, was icing on the cake.

Photo: Chrispics+ / Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Robert Schumann’s grand Third Symphony in E flat major, also known as the Rhenish, closed the concert with a bang. The German’s orchestration has long been criticised to be dense and overblown, resulting in musicologists calling for the score to be pared down and slim-lined. There was to be none of that this evening, with a plethora of sound filling the limited confines to near breaking point.

 

Near being the operative word, as conductor Spano coaxed from the ensemble playing of the most lively kind, possessed with a nervous cutting edge throughout, but never going over the top. Standing out was the chorale of brass which distinguished the solemn fourth movement, a glorious portrait of Cologne’s gothic cathedral. By the symphony’s rapturous end, loud cheers indicated that some things should be best left well alone.