MOZART WITH RODOLFO BARRAEZ AND AUSTIN LARSON

 

MOZART WITH RODOLFO BARRAEZ 

AND AUSTIN LARSON 

Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

Victoria Concert Hall 

Friday (22 November 2024)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 25 November 2024 with the title "Mozart makes delightful main course with SSO."

It is an incredulous fact that the Singapore Symphony Orchestra has never performed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Horn Concerto No.4 in E flat major (K.495) until this evening. Undoubtedly the most popular and best-known horn concerto in all of classical music, this gaping lacuna had to be filled sometime. 

Better late than never, one is grateful that SSO’s principal French hornist Austin Larson, just appointed to the post last year, did the honours. He is a supremely confident artist, one whose well-projected and warm tone brought much life and humanity to the music. 

Sustaining long unbroken lines and perfect intonation all through made the performance an unmitigated pleasure. The tricky cadenzas in the outer movements were negotiated with ease, while the rapidly repeated notes and quick leaps in the famous hunt-and-chase finale seemed like pure fun. 

Listeners of a certain vintage will remember Flanders and Swann’s comic take on this movement to appreciate its uproarious quality. Larson’s encore of fellow American hornist-composer Gina Gillie’s Ditty for Jonathan (2007) was a brief but dazzling show of brass virtuosity. 

Having supported the concerto to the hilt, the orchestra was on its own in two of Mozart’s most popular symphonies, conducted from memory by SSO’s award-winning Associate Conductor, the young Venezuelan Rodolfo Barraez. 

Genuine congeniality distinguished Symphony No.29 in A major (K.201) which opened the evening. Showcasing an enviable evenness on the strings from its outset, this set the tone for the rest of the work. The Andante slow movement delighted in delicate counterpoint between first and second violins, and later basked in its aria-like second theme. 

The third movement’s Menuet had a light bounce in its dance steps, contrasted by a more leisurely Trio section. The finale had that same vivacious spirit of the hunt, later echoed in the concerto, and sweeping ascending scales – much easier said than done – which brought the symphony to a joyous close. 

More serious was Symphony No.40 in G minor (K.550), part of Mozart’s miraculous final trilogy of 1788, which occupied the concert’s second half. The familiar opening melody was taken at a lighter clip than one might have expected, but the storms and stresses would come later, notably in the development section. 

A steady and unerring pulse dominated the slow movement, which was very polished, but possessing a nervous edge with mild dissonances sprinkled in each page. More contrasts followed with a vigorous Menuet and its graceful Trio counterpart. The Finale with its buffo (comedy in opera) elements and ensuing fugatos (later finding gloriously fruition in his final symphony, the “Jupiter”) was pure icing on this well-baked cake. 

This totally enjoyable concert is emblematic of the era established by SSO’s Austrian Music Director Hans Graf’s tenure since 2020, one in which the performance of Mozart is no longer an afterthought, but the main thought itself.