Mozart matinee: deep entertainment in Salzburg

Mozart’s second mean of the festival was celebrated.

Fortunately, Christian Bezuidenhout did not play the piano: the overwhelming orchestral supremacy entering the field using timpani and trumpets would have resulted in a short work of the precision solo instrument. But, of course, the other way turned out to be a shoe: the Salzburg Mozartium Orchestra, with Antonello Manacorda on the podium of the conductor, did not work with confidence and splendor – in the piano concerto until the modern grand piano played. That at first he pulls out one edged curtain bang after another and even momentarily gives a little thought before the soloist finally steps into the spotlight.

One of the subtle surprises in Mozart’s play is C. Major Concerto KV 503. You might hear him say that it was created in the waning Vienna enthusiasm for Mozart as a composer pianist, at a time when beginning and appearance in double meaning is already a special theme, and he has already presented a question. But there is no doubt that Bezuidenhout is constantly on the move musically: he puts the score in mind at every step of the keyboard, not just his voice, so he works in close partnership with orchestras—perhaps best of all in the wondrous main stanza of the epilogue, Where the piano passes a longing, urgency to the oboe over a soft bass intro, as if stuttering.

Gran Partita: heartbeat

His appearance also sounded somber, rich in Baroque scents in seconds and sequences, romantic in a free-floating triple decomposition: Allemand of Suite KV 399. At the same time the perfect joint of “Gran Partita,” this large, deep piece had entertaining and heart-pleasing tones. The roltimento tone and melody familiar here at the imperial level are reinvented, with vault, so to speak, and raised at the same time: with two obos and bassoons, clarinets, basset horns, four natural horns and a double voice. With Manacorda and soloists in Mozart’s orchestra, this work is delightful with deep, rich voices, peppered with wit and gossip, elegance and country.

(“Die Presse”, print edition, 02.08.2021)