SSO Mozart festival to soothe fevered brow
WHAT better way for Sydney Symphony Orchestra to launch its new season in these worrying times than with a sure-fire mini-festival of works by Mozart?
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WHAT better way for an orchestra to launch its new season in these worrying times than with a sure-fire mini-festival of works by Mozart?
Guaranteed to lift the spirits battered by the 24/7 news cycle, and more importantly to put bums on seats, three irresistible programs over seven concerts in the magnificent setting of the Opera House represent a shrewd piece of programming as David Robertson embarks on his fifth year at the helm of Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Nicely timed to capitalise on passing trade from the busy cruise ship season, each program comprises an overture, two piano concertos and one of Mozart’s last three symphonies.
The American maestro has his eminent friend and compatriot Emanuel Ax as the star of the show. The Ukrainian-born pianist was last here playing the five Beethoven concertos in Robertson’s debut season in 2014.
That was a memorable series and the Mozart extravaganza looks set to be equally enjoyable judging from the opening program, dubbed Dramatic Mozart, which held the audience entranced from the ominous opening of the Don Giovanni overture to the elegantly energetic finale of the Symphony No. 40.
AFFABLE
For the two concertos before and after interval Ax chose contrasting works in the 14th — perhaps the most underrated of the 27 Mozart composed — and the 20th, the most performed and popular.
The earlier work was one of a set that Mozart said could be performed as a chamber work “a quattro” — a practical solution to get it out to the public — but this performance was the fully scored version with doubled oboes and french horns.
Ax, affable and involved with the musicians, was in full command of his material, sparkling in the cadenzas by Beethoven and Hummel in the dramatic and occasionally dark 20th and with plenty of sparkle in the less familiar 14th.
Robertson, infectiously energetic and enthusiastic, whipped up the buoyant energy of Mozart’s writing
The orchestra were also on top form throughout this concert and the 40th symphony — its first movement surely up there with Beethoven’s fifth as the best known of them all — featured some superb playing from the woodwinds.
Robertson, infectiously energetic and enthusiastic, whipped up the buoyant energy of Mozart’s writing in the outer movements and the restless interruptions to the overall serene flow of the slow movement.
Next up is Seductive Mozart — Cosi fan tutte overture, concertos Nos. 16 and 17 and Symphony No. 39, on Monday, February 5, at 7pm and Wednesday, February 7, at 8pm. The tour concludes with Magnificent Mozart (Marriage of Figaro overture, Nos. 19 and 27 and the Jupiter Symphony) on Friday, February 9, and Saturday, February 10, both at 8pm.
DETAILS
● CONCERT: Dramatic Mozart, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Emanuel Ax
● WHERE: Sydney Opera House Concert Hall
● WHEN: Friday, February 2