Mostly
Mozart Festival 2006 (III):
Schnittke, Mozart, Nyman, Kremerata Baltica,
Gidon Kremer, Violin and Leader, Avery Fisher Hall, New
York City, 06.08.2006 (BH)
Schnittke:
Congratulatory Rondo (1974) (Orch. By Andrei Pushkarev)
Mozart:
Violin Concerto No. 2 in D major, K. 211 (1775)
Mozart:
Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-flat major, K. 207 (1773)
Nyman:
Trysting Fields, from Drowning by Numbers (1988) (New York premiere)
Mozart:
Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216 (1775)
Mozart:
Serenata notturna in D major, K. 239 (1776)
Some
of the exhilarating additions to the Mostly Mozart Festival
have been those that pay homage to the composer, either
explicitly (as in Frank Martin) or more stealthily, as
in Alfred Schnittke’s Congratulatory Rondo, with its sly
winks at Classical style. Written as a celebration
of the 50th birthday of violinist Rostislav
Dubinsky (at that time with the Borodin Quartet), it might
pass as an artifact from 200 years earlier, and yet forces
the listener to contemplate what musical qualities place
a piece squarely within the 20th century.
The initial theme sounds classical enough, but then small
oddities creep in. Phrases that go on too long or
that end in strange ways, or result in slight harmonic
differences that would never have appeared in Mozart’s
time. The orchestral texture now and then seems
to have a thread removed, or others added. In any
case, the silken tone of the Kremerata Baltica ensemble,
coupled with a deadpan earnestness, only underscored the
subtle brilliance of Schnittke’s conceit.
The elegance
in the playing continued as Gidon Kremer returned as soloist
in the first two of Mozart’s five violin concertos.
High points in the Concerto No. 2 in D major included
the energetic first-movement cadenza (by Robert Levin),
with Kremer in ecstatic form, as if changed into a black-clad
songbird sitting on a fence, warbling its lungs out.
The group was especially sparkling in the final Rondo
with its slightly off-kilter meter. The Concerto
No. 1 had elegance to spare, and Kremer characterized
the middle Andante beautifully, as if he were a shy suitor
at a school dance, waiting for his star turn. That
moment came in the brilliant finale, vivaciously dispatched
by the Kremerata musicians, who were an immaculate foil
for Kremer’s skittering virtuosity.
The
filmmaker Peter Greenaway called on Michael Nyman to score
his intriguing puzzle of a film, Drowning by Numbers,
by making references to an excerpt from Mozart’s Sinfonia
Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra, K. 364.
Using two-note motifs from the piece (sounding very much
like sighs) Nyman uses them in Mozart’s order, but then
removes all of the material in between these gestures.
The result is a gently minimal echo of Mozart in the far
reaches of one’s brain. Mr. Kremer and Daniil Grishin
on viola engaged in some lovely dialogue, gradually growing
softer and softer until the work’s abrupt close.
In the
third of Mozart’s concertos for violin and orchestra,
Mr. Kremer was again given immaculate support, including
a sweetly yearning oboe in the opening and some of the
most distinguished horn timbres I’ve heard in months.
The concluding Rondo was notable for Kremer’s nimble solo
work against a pizzicato-laced backdrop, and (again) his
effortless traversal of Levin’s demanding cadenza.
For the Serenata Notturna, Džeraldas Bidva joined Mr.
Kremer on violin, with Ūla
Ulijona on viola and Danielis Rubinas on bass as a quartet
standing in the middle of the ensemble. With the
abiding grace and attention that had come before, all
seemed completely normal until the final portion, in which
the bass and percussionist abruptly conspired to transport
the audience to Birdland circa 1965, with jazz pizzicatos,
raucous timpani blasts and sleek use of brushes on the
cymbals.
It
would be hard to overstate the wit of the first encore
by Teddy Bor, McMozart’s Eine Kleine Bricht Moonlicht
Nicht Musik, in which the initial familiar strains of
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik soon collapse in a riot of tunes
capped with Auld Lang Syne. As if this weren’t hilarious
enough, the group topped itself with its second encore,
channeling Mantovani with Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade,
savvily arranged by Kremerata’s crack percussionist, Andrei
Pushkarev, whose keen skills on the xylophone will linger
as one of the highlights of the summer. And few
images from the entire festival will top seeing the group
landing on the final chord, complete with a suave, 1950s-style
group hum.
Bruce Hodges
