Grosser Saal, Mozarteum
Haydn: L’anima del del filosofo, Hob.XXVIII:13: OvertureMozart: Piano Concerto no.27 in B-flat major, KV 595; Six Minuets, KV 599: nos. 1,2, 5, and 6
Haydn: Symphony no.94 in G major, ‘Surprise’/’mit dem Paukenschlag’
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)
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| Images: Wolfgang Lienbacher |
And so, to a Mozart Week concert devoted
entirely to Mozart’s last year, the partial exception being his final piano
concerto, certainly completed and first performed in 1791, but whose origins
may date back as far as 1788. In December 1790, Mozart had said goodbye,
perhaps farewell, to Haydn as the latter prepared to leave for London with Johann
Peter Salomon, also present at their dinner. Accounts in early Haydn
biographies differ, Albert Christoph Dies having tears well from the yes of
both composers, as Mozart suggested they ‘would probably be saying’ their ‘last
farewell in this life,’ Georg August Griesinger telling of a happy meal at
which Mozart forecast Haydn would be back soon, ‘because you are no longer
young’. At any rate, it was to be the last time they saw each other, Haydn
returning only in 1792.
It was during that first of his two visits to London that Haydn wrote his opera
L’anima del filosofo, ossia Orfeo ed Euridice for the newly built theatre
at the Haymarket (the old one having burnt down in 1789). Several of the
composer’s London concerts would take place there too. It was fitting, then,
that the Overture should open this excellent concert from Camerata Salzburg,
led from the violin by Giovanni Guzzo. A dark hued, richly dramatic introduction
both led to and contrasted with a lively ‘Presto’ section: fast, but not too
fast, beautifully judged throughout and with evident delight in Haydn’s
invention from the whole orchestra, perhaps all the more so for being led by
one of their ‘own’. Harmonic, timbral, and other surprises registered with
meaning, yet without exaggeration. It proved the perfect (metaphorical)
curtain-raiser.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard joined the orchestra for the piano concerto, which, whenever it is written, is so inextricably connected with our (at least my) ideas of late Mozart, its spareness, fragility, and rare beauty, its glimpse of the beyond, that effort to deromanticise seems almost, if not always, beside the point. That is not, of course, so say that it should sound lachrymose, which it certainly did not here, but simply that Mozart was in many ways as much a Romantic – he was certainly held to be so by ETA Hoffmann et al. – as a Classicist, all the more so by 1791, and that we lose something if reasoned scruples harden into puritanism. Whatever or whoever Mozart may have been, he was certainly no puritan, nor did this performance treat him as such. The first movement offered a tutti balance different from what we might once have expected, wind unquestionably more forward, although there was never ‘one way’: just listen to Klemperer’s Mozart, in other respects very different, but not in this. The crucial thing was the cultivated, detailed, tender playing, smiling through tears as this of all the piano concertos surely must. Moreover, it led inexorably to Aimard’s first solo entry, which also turned inwards – very 1791 – chromaticism implied even when not present, a little like Carl Dahlhaus’s idea of ‘secondary diatonicism’ that incorporates the chromatic exploration of Tristan in the unabashed C major of Die Meistersinger. The turn to the minor was exquisitely, movingly handled, all aware of the crucial role played here by oscillation between major and minor modes. Occasionally, balance between soloist and orchestra seemed a little tilted to the former, but this soon corrected itself. Aimard here and elsewhere offered certain embellishments, all effected with discernment. Mozart’s cadenzas said all that was required.
Warmth and tenderness characterised the slow movement, simplicity underlain by
complexity and vice versa: another crucial, perhaps the most crucial,
key to understanding late Mozart. Harmony guided the performance: one felt it
throughout in deeply moving fashion. The finale’s character was born from
equally keen senses of detail and the whole, strength and fragility united in
opposition that is part balance, part dialectic. As an encore, Aimard offered
an early contribution to Kurtág’s centenary: ravishing, at times well-nigh
Debussyan accounts of three of the composer’s Játekók. Mozart remained,
in the sense that every note, every touch of the piano counted.
The second half took us first to Vienna’s
Redoutensaal, to music for dancing—and one certainly felt it to be so in four
of the KV 599 Six Minutes, my sole regret that it was not all six. At any rate,
the four we heard were exquisite in every respect, whether lilt, colour, or
otherwise, culminating in the symphonic grandeur (and Haydnesque surprise) of
the sixth. Whereas in the first concert of the festival, Ádám Fischer’s occasional
turns to solo instruments could sound mannered, here it seemed the most natural
thing in the world, as indeed did the performances as a whole.
We then returned, now with the violas absent from Mozart’s band, to Haydn: for the ‘Surprise’ Symphony, or, as it is known in German, emphasising a different, yet related aspect of his writing, ‘mit dem Paukenschlag’. The first movement introduction, echoing the concert opening, was spacious, full of promise, yet miraculously concise, the Vivace assai bursting forth likewise with evident kinship to the opera overture. Spirited delight characterised both detail and the whole, colour, concision, and coherence inextricably connected. It developed, returned, and continued to develop: the essence of sonata form. This was, quite simply, glorious. The Andante offered a surprise of its own, extra percussion jolting us out of our knowledge-born complacency. The working out of form and content was the true delight, though. What a musical mind Haydn’s is, and what a joy it was to be guided by it in so enlightened a performance as this. There followed another wonderful minuet, taken at a more rollicking tempo than Mozart’s, unquestionably one-to-a-bar, but then this was never intended for dancing. In my heart of hearts, I may prefer something statelier, but this worked well on its own terms, and lacked nothing in sparkling of the eye, replete with further ‘purely musical’ surprises. Chamber playing in the trio evinced a similar naturalness to that heard in Mozart. The finale was every inch a ‘Haydn finale’. Tempo, character, lilt, grandeur, edification, and intellectual coherence: this had it all. Bravo!
