Word: concerto
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...ready to perform for you!" declared the Mozart Society Orchestra (MSO) as it started off with J. S. Bach's Overture to the Orchestral Suite in D Major. With dignified energy, MSO grabbed the audience's attention from the very beginning. Lehmann himself performed a solo, Violin Concerto in G by Haydn, with the orchestra accompanying. As the strings echoed and flourished the soloist's line, it was evident that MSO not only had energy but also a thorough command over style and technique. The highlight of the evening came at the end with Ottorino Respighi's The Birds...
...challenge of Beethoven's Concerto occurs in the first movement, where the notes span almost the entire range of the violin, rising to a D two octaves above the staff. As stated by the program, "This sort of exposed writing in the upper register is more indicative than anything else of what the solo part in this concerto is about." As the pitches began to stretch the bound of Human aural tolerability, one was truly thankful that it was in the hands of such an accomplished violinist. Mutter handled these delicate passages with grace and finesse, never allowing emotion...
True, Ms. Mutter was strapless, playing the violin in a gun-metal gray dress, and Mr. Ozawa was batonless, conducting as if summoning some ancient rain spirit. But these were the few rare unconventional elements of BSO's February 8th performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D, Opus 61 and Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, pictures from pagan Russia...
...contrast to the concerto, a "quirky interpretation," or at least some risk taking was just what Stravinksy's Le Sacre needed. Unfortunately as noted by one fellow concert-goer, "It was played too much like Debussy." That is to say that there was too much late 19th century impressionism and not enough Igor Stravinsky. It's not the type of music that you walk down the Champs-Elysees listening to, which should be evident from the subtitle of the piece, "pictures from Pagan Russia...
...early years seemed charmed. As a teenager, she studied briefly with Pablo Casals and dazzled concertgoers. A patron gave her two Stradivarius cellos, the first when she was just 16. With it, she championed such British works as Edward Elgar's melancholy Cello Concerto, which became her signature piece. By the time Du Pre and Barenboim met and fell in love, she was moving in a circle of musical celebrities that included Arthur Rubinstein and Itzhak Perlman...