IS A MOZART FRAGMENT ENOUGH FOR A HORN CONCERTO?
                        The PBO Wrestles with a Reconstruction
                                              By D. Rane Danubian
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Sept. 24-30,  2011
                                                                  Vol. 14, No. 9
            Well, well. Mozart has produced a new horn concerto to go with the four we already have. And the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra paraded it out in its concerts  this week.
            Well, sort of a horn concerto, K.370b, a forerunner of the four, which was  cut and scattered into numerous fragments handed out to friends as posthumous keepsakes. Mozart  left a first movement incomplete in 1781---nothing more. And now the fragments have been reunited, and a reconstruction carried out by modern scholar Robert Levin.
            But it’s a slight, non-vintage effort, only four minutes long (far too short for a first movement), with a jumpy first theme that’s downright Haydnesque, much in need of a development section too. When performed here at the Herbst Theatre Sept. 23, it was labeled a concerto pasticcio, with two existing Mozart movements tacked on to produce a more conventional concerto, borrowing the superb Romance from the concerto K. 495, also in the key of E Flat major. And for a finale, there was the well-known complete torso piece, and an excellent one at that, the Concert Rondo. K. 371, all adding up to a 16-minute three-movement work-----an ambitious if inconsistent paste-up job.
            The PBO’s own R.J. Kelley was the soloist, playing a natural horn devoid of pistons or finger holes----all the tones and trills must be produced by the lips, like a bugle, only much more intricate. He went at it gamely, with supreme confidence, perhaps wishing he were back at the (piston-valve) French horn, which is much more manageable. In the cadenza, he added a few dual tones, like the Tuvan throat singers, sounding two distinct tnes at once---but on horn, not voice.
            The other novelty was the Overture to “The Death of Orpheus” by Franz Ignaz Beck. Music Director Nicolas McGegan, now in his 25th year at the helm, seems to have an infinite knack for unearthing obscure works and composers meriting a hearing.  Beck’s ballet was the hit of the 1759 Paris ballet season. Only this well-crafted six-minute overture remains of the ballet today, foreshadowing Gluck’s operatic style---somber and moody at the start, then increasingly vivid and theatrical.
            The program, presented in  three Bay Area cities, also featured Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 and Haydn’s No. 98.
            The PBO is an elite orchestra featuring period instruments throughout, using lower-tension strings and bows, producing mellow sounds more for expressiveness than loudness, using 33 players in most of this program. McGegan leads them with a jolly mien and no baton, and gets very good results from the loyal long-standing corps.
            The next program is Nov. 17-20.
             Philharmonic Baroque Orchestra, Nicholas McGegan music director, performing a reconstructed Mozart horn concerto pasticcio Sept. 22-25. For info: (415) 252-1288, or go online.

            ©D. Rane Danubian 2011
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        D. Rane Danubian has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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