Many well-intentioned musicians who can perform with a degree of skill on period instruments may be convinced they are taking an authentic approach to 18th-Century and earlier repertory. But in fact authenticity, as a principle of performance, meant something far different to the Classical era.
Music back then was very much a living language, just as concerts were an improvised dialogue among players. The ink was still wet on some of the scores, meaning that no performance tradition existed for them. There was nothing of the modern preoccupation with perfect reproduction of sacred texts. Above all, spontaneity was the key to bringing these works to life.
Christopher Hogwood has keenly advocated such distinctions since advancing to the head of the historical brigade with his founding of the Academy of Ancient Music in London in 1973. Over the years he and his period-instruments band have cut an impressive swath across the Classical and Baroque repertory through their many recordings. And his conducting–which, for all its scholarly intelligence, once tended to be rather dry–is far more flexible and expressive.
So it was a pleasure to hear Hogwood and his 36 British period players make old music leap across time and space with such bracing immediacy as they brought to their all-Mozart program Wednesday in a conspicuously well-filled Orchestra Hall.
Their program took few risks, even if their crisp and lean performances took all kinds of them. At the core were three Mozart favorites: the Overture to “The Marriage of Figaro,” Piano Concerto No. 21 in C (K.467) and Symphony No. 35 (“Haffner”). But Hogwood surrounded them with a few musical surprises, none more striking than Robert Levin’s vivacious account of the concerto.
Levin is not only a leading Mozart scholar but a first-rate exponent of the fortepiano, the precursor of the modern piano that Mozart used in his own performances. Together, he and Hogwood treated K.467 like orchestral chamber music, purging it of “Elvira Madigan” soppiness and heaviness. They allowed it to breathe a spirit the composer would have admired.
Levin improvised his own cadenzas and supplied embellishments all the way through, particularly in repeated passages. The orchestra players added decorations of their own. The fortepiano–a lovely pastiche built by Keith Hill of Ann Arbor that combines details from various historical periods–spoke softly but clearly in dialogue with the tangy woodwinds. Of course, Levin’s Mozart was worlds removed from the romantic style of Mozart we are used to hearing–call it anti-Barenboim. But its brisk intimacy was as refreshing as can be.
The same gracious instrumental interplay, precise articulation and spruce rhythms that kept Levin’s listeners so raptly engaged also marked Hogwood’s spirited readings of the “Haffner” Symphony and the March (K.408) originally intended to introduce the work. The judicious balance of strings and winds so often missing from modern-orchestra readings of Mozart symphonies was happily evident.
The rest of the concert held lighter Mozart fare, including three dances from Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni,” which, as Hogwood wryly pointed out, are seldom heard over the singers. He began with a genial account of the “Figaro” Overture and ended with a tongue-in-cheek conflation of Mozart and the old pop standard, “If You Knew Suzie.” With his blunt wit, Mozart would have appreciated the joke as much as anyone there.
Add the Milwaukee Symphony to the list of U.S. orchestras feeling the budget pinch. Facing an operating deficit as high as $700,000, the orchestra has persuaded its musicians to forgo 11/2 weeks of vacation pay, to end their season a week early and to accept changes in their health care coverage. The changes drop the contract minimum salary from $56,276 to $53,078, less than what the players made last season.
