This is an online only review - no other format is available.
Permission is granted to print and distribute this review in any format.

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Many Faces of Mozart Festival. "Glimpses of Mozart: From the Mechanical to the Sublime." Joseph Horowitz (host), Christine Abraham (mezzo-soprano), Frank Foerster (viola), Karl Herman (clarinet), and Min Kwon (piano). Bickford Theater, Morris Museum, Morristown.

The New Jersey Symphony opened the 2006 January Festival devoted to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in his 250th birthday year with an interesting, though at times a little unorganized, low-key event. Trying to find something new or slightly different to serve as an introduction to such a familiar and even mythological figure, host Joseph Horowitz and a quartet of artists presented selections that made for some sort of whole to serve as an introduction to the festival to follow.

Soprano Christine Abraham opened the evening in the intimate theatre with "Parto! Ma tub en mio" from the composer's final opera La Clemenza di Tito. This was a sample of the subject matter of "Mozart's Autumn Years", the first of the orchestral concerts which included the overture to the same opera.

Once brushed aside as a last-gasp uninspired work written strictly for the money in an already archaic *opera seria style, Tito has gained respectability in recent years and has even found itself knocking on the door of standard repertoire status at some opera houses including the Metropolitan in New York. Abraham, accompanied by pianist Min Kwon and the orchestra's principal clarinetist Karl Herman (who defly conveyed the *obbligato part almost as a duet partner) displayed the beauty, power and lyrical/emotional complexity that should halt any suggestion that a financially strapped Mozart was burned out when he wrote the piece and had only reluctantly and routinely honored a commission. Despite not having a full orchestra behind her, Abraham fully captured the sense of character and scene and filled the theater with engaging dramatic nuance. Whether singing beautifully lyrical passages, emotionally charged phrases, or embellished lines, the mezzo-soprano was consistently in control and had the audience hanging on every note. After hearing the all-too-brief excerpt, several listeners expressed a desire to explore the entire opera.

Abraham followed with two arias by Antonio Salieri, a composer whose name has been infamous for mediocrity and murder from Pushkin's short play Mozart and Salieri of the 1830s through Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. Few still believe Salieri actually had anything to do with Mozart's death, but the reputation for mediocrity remains difficult to alter. Abraham's two selections, "Via largo raggazzi" from Prima la musica, poi le parole ("First the music, then the words" - a subject later explored in depth by Richard Strauss in Capriccio) and "La ra la" from La Grotto di Tronfonio, were both delightful little trifles, vocally well polished. Abraham sang them with conviction, panache and charm. Still, delightful as they were, neither even began to approach the depth of Mozart's aria. Salieri was, as could be heard here, not a mediocrity, but neither was he even close to the level of his rival.

For this audience member, the vocal selections left me wanting a discussion of the actual relationship of Mozart and Salieri or of opera at the time or of something. However, little was said that related very much at all to what had just been heard. Instead, the audience received a fascinating discussion from Karl Harman on the history of the clarinet. Fascinating as it was, however, any relationship to the festival or even that particular program was rather difficult to discern. Still, it provided a nice opportunity to get to know one of the orchestra's principal players.

The only other actual selection on the program was the *"Kegelstatt" Trio K. 498 played by Kwon and Herman joined by principal violist Frank Foerster. The very combination of clarinet and viola with the piano was an unusual one in Mozart's era. In fact, it remains unusual today and the trio itself remains relatively unknown compared to Mozart's other chamber music. This is a shame because the work is engaging from start to finish and filled with the musical depth that distinguishes so much of Mozart's late compositional work. The three musicians performed superbly. While all remained individual, the consistent dark colors of the writing combined with the warm dark tones of the viola and clarinet created a texture in which the tone colors of the instruments as a whole became as important as the color of individual. Themes and melodies were played with an introspective expression that created a memorably involved performance nicely suited to the intimacy of the theater.

Following the performance of the trio, Horowitz, Herman, and Foerster were joined by museum director Eric Hafen and Jere Ryder, curator of the Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of mechanical instruments and automatons. Again, there was the expectation of something interesting related to what had just happened, but instead there was an interesting, but casual and disjointed bit of bantering. One pleasant aspect of the group discussion was Frank Foester's talk about and obvious love for the 17th century instrument which he gets to play from the orchestra's historical instrument collection. Foerster's talk easily was the highlight of this part of the show.

While the group sat on stage, Horowitz had an excerpt played from a fantasia Mozart wrote for a mechanical clock. While we don't often think about the major familiar composers writing for unusual instruments as we do with the early music composers, Mozart - and Haydn and Beethoven as well - did compose for some now obsolete instruments such as the glass harmonica and for the newfangled mechanical instruments, most familiar today in the form of music boxes. In the 18th century, however, music boxes came in a large variety of shapes, styles and sizes ranging from very tiny to major pieces of furniture. Alas, the selection played was from a recording which was a little anticlimactic. Following the selection, the audience was invited to view the room where an assortment of 18th and 19th century mechanical devices were on display. The Morris Museum was recently awarded custody of the extremely extensive collection, and viewing the several dozen pieces on display - a fraction of the total - whetted the appetite to view more. Just as the evening, for all its lack of focus, whet the appetite to experience the New Jersey Symphony's exploration of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

---

Return to CNJS Home Page | Return to Reviews Table of Contents