MOZART IS BACK
    With Midsummer Succulents and Rarities for Wolfgangers
                                            By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of July 17-24, 2011
                                                                  Vol. 13, No. 117
            BERKELEY---A modest orchestral Mozart festival started in Berkeley has now been around longer than Mozart himself. Its current summer reprise under founder-conductor George Cleve is tasteful and animated, focusing imaginatively on the more obscure Mozart opuses ignored by the midwinter orchestras.
            It’s a modest all-Mozart enterprise, merely two programs played by a 39-member orchestra in four venues. When heard July 15 in the acoustically desirable First Congregational Church, the fest rolled out the “Idomeneo” overture, two alluring concert arias, the Piano Concerto No. 26 and, the best-known, “Linz” Symphony No. 36. And Cleve took advantage of his bully pulpit to plug---twice over---staged performances of the opera “Idomeneo” which he would conduct in the fall. Yes, commercials are everywhere these days.
            Cleve, who just celebrated his 75th birthday a week earlier, has a responsive orchestra that plays smartly, with a notable oboist Laura Griffiths, and a well-tempered brass section. He places the violins antiphonally, right and left of him. The cello section unfortunately is too large, obscuring the violins in the main opening theme of the “Linz” (I counted five cellos, vs. six each of first and second violins.)
            A spinto soprano from the Opera San Jose roster, Christina Major, poured out  exquisite lyricism in the aria “Ruhe sanft” from the incomplete opera “Zaide.” She floated tones smoothly in a role reminiscent of Donna Elvira in “Don Giovanni.” Mozart’s melodic gift was never finer than here. I’d like to have seen a few Luftpausen  (slight pregnant hesitations to accentuate the next phrase), which Cleve usually avoids, perhaps for lack of enough rehearsal time.
            The other aria, more like Donna Anna, was less idiomatic for Major, whose voice was too often forced in the high-drama moments. “Ch’io mi cordi di te” is one of the composer’s finest of the genre, an 11-minute (!) concert display of varied emotions, with a piano obbligato effectively rendered by Jon Nakamatsu.
            Nakamatsu, a South Bay native who had won gold at the 1997 Cliburn Piano Competition, returned for the “Coronation” Concerto No. 26. I almost wish Mozart had never written the concertos Nos. 20-25, each at the very pinnacle of the classical genre. Because then, the 26th would then be recognized as a notable creation on a grand scale, ending in regal keyboard fireworks. Alas, it is now merely a rather stark triumph of the diatonic, an anticlimax in the sequence----and, in addition, a mislabeled piece which was debuted a year before the title’s “Coronation,” in 1789. Only the notes for the right hand are known, as Mozart, ever deadline-challenged, no doubt added the left-hand accompaniment while he played the premiere.
            Nakamatsu’s renowned mellow touch at the keyboard did not emerge, because of assertive bright tones of the piano on one hand, and the church’s articulate acoustics on the other. But he powered the resonant roulades of the finale toward a rousing conclusion to the audience’s evident liking.
            The “Idomeneo” Overture of 1781 is a jewel, with some glowering minor-key ruminations presaging the breakthroughs of “Don Giovanni” still six years down the road. It is more dramatic than the lengthy opera seria that follows.
            The concert concluded with the familiar “Linz” Symphony, which was pushed along relentlessly. But Cleve managed some highly nuanced, lyrical moments in the Andante. The large-dimension “Linz” ushers in the sequence of the late great symphonies through No. 41, excepting No. 37, which does not exist (the numbering came about before that work was debunked).
            THE MMF’S SHAKEDOWN CRUISES---In the first festivals, Cleve had conducted Mozart’s symphony correponding to his own age. He stopped after  #41; unlike Haydn, Mozart never got any further during his abbreviated lifetime.
            Midsummer Mozart Festival of orchestral music, 37th season of  all-Mozart, George Cleve, music director, in four Bay Area venues and two programs through July 24. For info: (415) 627-9141, or go online.

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2011
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           Paul Hertelendy 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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