SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Mozart:   Carolyn Kuan, cond., Jon Manasse, clarinet, Harolyn Blackwell, soprano, Sally Burgess, mezzo-soprano, Karl Dent, tenor, Clayton Brainerd, bass-baritone, Seattle Symphony Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 11.10.2007 (BJ)

For a critic with an open mind (which I would hope includes all of us), the profession offers few greater pleasures than to find, in revisiting the work of a young performer, grounds for enthusiasm where he had not found them before. Such was certainly my experience at this concert, in which the Seattle Symphony’s associate conductor, Carolyn Kuan, led performances of three late works by Mozart.

The discovery of a great deal of talent was all the more welcome considering that the divine Mozart is a much harder composer to get right than the relatively infinitesimal Orff, whose Carmina Burana was the main work in the concert after which I criticized Ms. Kuan rather harshly a few months ago. This time there was much more élan and also more refinement in the music-making. The offbeat accents in the Zauberflöte overture were deftly brought out; the orchestral contribution to the Clarinet Concerto was both punctual and sensitively phrased; and the balance between orchestra and chorus in the Requiem (given in the familiar Süssmayr completion) reflected similar improvement.

With all that said, let me not go overboard. There were some slack rhythms in the overture’s slow introduction. And the performance of the Requiem was not one for the ages–it was predominantly neat and clean, but projected little in the way of cosmic awe. As for the choral contribution, contrapuntal passages were not always clearly executed, with new imitative entries too comprehensively obscuring the continuation of existing lines, and rapid figurations tended toward brittleness, with individual short notes excessively staccato in articulation. It would be an exaggeration to say that the effect was of an almost frivolous “ha-ha-ha-ha,” but it wasn’t far from that.

It may be unjust to lay these complaints at Ms. Kuan’s door: the Seattle Symphony Chorale has acquired a new director this season, Joseph Crnko replacing the retired George Fiore, and it always takes a while for choral singers to settle down in that circumstance. The well-matched solo quartet of Harolyn Blackwell, Sally Burgess, Karl Dent, and Clayton Brainerd, meanwhile, achieved fine ensemble and sang with consistently polished artistry.

I was somewhat in two minds about Jon Manasse’s solo performance in the Clarinet Concerto. There were some exquisite moments in it, most notably the rapt pianissimo delivery of the slow movement’s theme when it returned after the middle section. But this actually accentuated what I felt to be the unstylish presentation of the theme at its first appearance, when there was scarcely a note that was not subjected to some kind swell or fade. In the fast movements, moreover, Mr. Manasse took too little account of the distinction between legato phrasing and staccato effects that Mozart’s clearly differentiated notation surely prescribes.

None of these quibbles overshadowed, in the end, my general impression of a thoroughly enjoyable concert. Drawing crisp and often eloquent playing from the orchestra, Carolyn Kuan met the challenges posed by a trio of masterpieces with some considerable credit, and I am delighted to have encountered evidence of much promise for still further growth.

Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page