Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Don Giovanni Overture, K527 (1787)
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A, K488 (1786)
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K550 (1788)
Andreas Staier (fortepiano)
Le Concert de la Loge/Julien Chauvin (violin)
rec. 2021, Arsenal de Metz, Cité Musicale and Notre-Dame du Liban Church, Paris, France
ALPHA 875 [56]
I wish more CDs were like this with genres refreshingly mixed in concert fashion. Relive what the first audience heard in the Don Giovanni Overture: loud opening chords in D minor, Andante, packing a punch on the period instruments of Le Concert de la Loge. Then soft, falling woodwind and a four-note motif of insistent lament on the first violins, the opening chords’ return inescapably brutal and a rising and falling motif of sixteen semiquavers on the flutes and first violins constantly fretting. But then relief, a Molto Allegro in D major (tr. 1, 1:34). In the first and main theme you feel more of a character when chords bursting with energy resolve into dancing descending quavers (1:55). A loud, authoritative downward tutti motif alternates with soft, feathery first violins’ quavers (2:13). When the latter transform into an energetic codetta, the second theme (2:31), life is really good, if short-lived. The first theme returns twice and the second theme’s return is notably supported by horns, trumpets and timpani in full cry (4:51), as they are in the optimistic concert overture ending heard here (from 5:13).
Piano Concerto 23 maintains the optimism. In the orchestral introduction the first theme has a cooler mellowness than with modern instruments but its second part has a more bracing friskiness. Andreas Staier appears well before his solo entry contributing to the continuo part, as notated in the score but rarely performed in recordings. Thus, Staier’s solos emerge spotlit from the ensemble rather than a new voice and he sometimes enhances the continuo, as when imitating and varying the first violins’ echoing the woodwind (tr. 2, 1:32). The ensemble together contrasts a deep savouring of melody and stylish sprightliness. The semiquaver runs have an escapist feel, delivered by Staier with a pearly, liquid tone. The gorgeous chromatic descents of the second theme (0:53) are appreciated by Staier in relaxed manner, nicely offsetting the orchestra’s refreshing blitheness. The third theme (4:19), briefly laid back, takes this contrast a shade further, a thoughtful phase, yet flowing purposedly to a natural restoration of the recapitulation. There’s attractive momentum about the whole. Playing Mozart’s cadenza, Staier makes every note shine, its main quotation the dancing retort to the second part of the third theme (4:53).
I compare the 2011 recording by Rudolf Brautigam with Die Kölner Akademie/Michael Alexander Willens (review). No piano continuo here, a more deliberate introduction, a performance of greater beauty but less vivacity, a more autumnal mood, a sheeny and smooth, less dancing second theme. Both Brautigam and Staier use copies of instruments by Anton Walter who made Mozart’s piano. To me Brautigam’s sounds more pastel shade yet his semiquaver runs more fleet of foot. The Bis recording has greater finesse of ensemble clarity and balance between piano and ensemble, but with Alpha you feel a more joyous collaboration of pianist and ensemble.
There are two notable features to the Staier/Chauvin Adagio slow movement (tr. 3). From 0:07 introducing a filigree ornament where a quaver rest allows the listener space for contemplation, shows Staier opts for an ingenious, growingly extravagant, display of the scope for ornamentation. For me, at least sometimes, less is more. Feature 2 I like, the contrast Chauvin introduces in the third theme (2:17), a bubbly change of mood, like an escapist interlude and the joyous element in the Don Giovanni overture. Earlier the stark keening of the clarinet introducing the second theme (0:48) has provided a reality check to Staier’s masking sorrow in an orgy of artifice. There should also be room for the impact of Mozart’s bare line, notably the two-octave leap from the piano’s alto E to coloratura E (1:59). Staier for me dilutes this with a filling arpeggio. In the coda (5:31) Staier brings more feeling to his added ornamentation, but it still somewhat obscures the plangency of Mozart’s bare notes. I prefer Brautigam’s floating the arioso with largely only the ornamentation Mozart specified in the score. This achieves a resounding sadness, moving because of its restraint. So, the two-octave leap isn’t filled in. However, I prefer Chauvin/Staier’s third theme where Willens/Brautigam seem a little too formal.
Staier/Chauvin’s rondo finale skips along with less ornamentation lightly delivered with unpretentious skill. Throughout the sleekness of Chauvin’s woodwind well matches the daintiness of Staier’s fortepiano. Staier brings a wonderful dexterity to the second theme/first episode (tr. 4, 0:54). The flute and bassoon’s third theme in E minor (1:33) is no match for the delightful exuberance of Staier’s fourth theme in E major (2:35). But the tables are turned when Staier’s flurries in F sharp minor (3:21) are reformed by the woodwind with a contented clarinet and flute fifth theme in A major (3:50). I prefer Staier/Chauvin in this finale to Brautigam/Willens because they bring more spring, a performance you get more involved with rather than, with Brautigam/Willens, admire for its greater emphasis on virtuosity.
The thread of angst from the Don Giovanni overture through Adagio of Concerto 23, comes to fulfilment in Symphony 40, Mozart’s most troubled, passionate and defiant. Chauvin’s quiet opening strings’ theme is of pressing momentum, its soulful beauty careworn and immediately terrified by the loud, grinding dissonance of the tutti punctuation. The more optimistic second part of the theme (tr. 5, 0:20) presents a tutti of steely, abrasive resolution. The quiet second theme (0:43), perhaps a vision of earlier equanimity, remains uneasy because of Chauvin’s pressing Molto Allegro. The exposition codetta (1:12), with its trickling descents in clarinets and bassoons and particularly first violins’ sweet sighs, offers from Chauvin the prospect of a happy outcome, and you recall Don Giovanni again. But the development is clear and rigorous, the violins with a new counter-tune (3:36) against the other strings’ first theme, then they change places (3:40). Considerable density is paired down to repetition of the first theme’s first phrase in changing harmony, first violins imitated in echo by flute and clarinet, like the pleadings of souls adrift (3:59). But these pleadings now become from Chauvin so searing (4:13) it seems the woodwind and strings remain embattled even as they meld into more lonely pleas and the recapitulation, with the second part of the first theme more combative in recap. The second theme recap threatens relaxation but then hastens to a crisis only offset by the coda (6:03), an extended version of the exposition codetta which buries the pleading souls in cadential rigour. You’re both stunned and saddened by the relentlessness.
Comfort comes in the slow movement which Chauvin makes absolutely Andante, so not drooling. The second phrase of the first theme is significant (tr. 6, 0:13): three notes repeated, the second and sustained of each an emphasised appoggiatura. Thus, it brings to mind the reflective warmth of the first movement second theme. The counter-theme on the first violins (0:27) is a vision of hope which grows to develop into demisemiquaver figures. The second part of the first theme (1:01) contrasts a loud opening note and soft response in following phrases. For me Chauvin makes the loud note too pert, creating too brusque a contrast with the carefree tripping of the responding demisemiquaver figurations which soon beautifully embellish the return of the first theme. In the second theme (1:54) the phrases are sweet, short and intimate, repeated in a cajoling manner, then enriched adding bassoon and then clarinet repeat. Chauvin makes this a memorable and happy interlude, but his closing loud tutti of the exposition (2:16) is perhaps too emphatic for a last storm-cloud appearance. The development is fittingly torrid with antiphonal hardening of the demisemiquaver figurations thrust between strings and woodwind as if hurled around in a storm. But the crisis soon passes and the woodwind exchange a five-note phrase (6:17) like a song of thanksgiving over the opening phrase of the first theme, anticipating its recap. The exposition repeat is made but not the second half of the movement’s, arguably weakening the balance of its overall presentation.
Chauvin’s Minuet is a very sprightly, quite forceful Allegretto, the syncopation marked, so it seems a robotic dance which takes away something of the Minuet’s manic intensity in favour of a more abstract display of crisp rhythmic and contrapuntal interplay. I like it because it’s different. Chauvin’s Trio of G major relief, though un-roseate, glimpses the comely, straightforward natural order of things, but the glory of the blossoming horns in the second strain climax is short-changed.
The Allegro assai finale, as with Don Giovanni, is all fire and brimstone. The light, soft strings’ dance proposition is met by loud, castigating tutti responses. Just listen to the sustained wailing of the oboes and clarinets (from tr. 8, 0:31) and flute top D to E flat (0:50). Chauvin catches the sheer wildness amid the virtuoso tour-de-force. Yet his first violins’ second theme (1:00) for me misses full pathos by lacking contrition and the clarinet and bassoon repeat seem hedonist mocking. Nonetheless, the coda (5:43) is suitably unremitting. Again, the exposition repeat is made but not the second half of the movement’s.
Michael Greenhalgh
Published: November 10, 2022
