Anderszewski & Gardner at Mostly Mozart

This was really Piotr Anderszewski week in New York City.  Bruno Monsaingeon's new film about the musician became available through DVD retailers and received a premiere theatrical exhibition at Lincoln Center on August 1, and Anderszewski performed with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra on Friday and Saturday nights.  The guest conductor for these concerts was Edward Gardner, a young Englishman, and one of his compatriots, Toby Spence, sang Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, with the solo participation of Mostly Mozart principal horn player Lawrence DiBello.

First, the film.  I acquired the DVD immediately and watched it one night this week.  Monsaingeon is famous for his excellent classical music documentary films, and this one is no exception in being thought-provoking, well-edited, and a pleasure to watch.  The film is organized around a concert tour in Poland, which Anderszewski undertakes using a special railway car that includes a Steinway piano for his practicing, and full living quarters (including a kitchen).  Scenes from the train recur as a unifying and structural device, but the film includes performance excerpts, rehearsals, and many comments by the pianist about his life, his career, his feelings and opinions about music....  One gets the feeling of immersion in the world of Piotr Anderszewski, which is full of torment and joy.  Torment because he is a perfectionist, but joy because it is clear that he finds incredible fulfillment in total engagement with music.  Seeing the film was a perfect set-up for the concert.

The program lived up to the festival's name, since 3 of the 4 works were by Mozart, as was the pre-concert recital, a fluid performance of Mozart's C Minor Piano Sonata, K. 457, by French pianist Claire-Marie Le Guay.  The concert began with the Magic Flute Overture, continued with the Piano Concerto No. 18 in Bb, K. 456, followed after intermission by the Britten Serenade, and concluding with Mozart's Symphony No. 39 in Eb, K. 543.  An ideal program for a Mozart-lover!!

I had never seen Gardiner conduct before, and I was quite impressed.  The Magic Flute Overture was big and dramatic, despite the size of the orchestra.  (The MM Festival Orchestra in this work had 10 first violins, 8 seconds, 5 violas, 4 cellos, and 3 double-basses, about the size for a good opera pit.)  The introduction had the requisite stateliness, the allegro the vivacity and bounce, and the sharply observed dynamic contrasts accentuating the drama.  Assertive tympani added to the rhythmic excitement.

Gardiner is a very expressive conductor.  My last minute ticket purchase had placed me in tier 1, box 3, directly overlooking the orchestra (which is moved out into the hall with bleachers placed behind it for Mostly Mozart at Avery Fisher, which results in better projection of orchestra sound in the hall and a closer feeling for the audience), so I could watch the conductor's expression from the side rather than the rear.  Gardiner reminded me of films of Leonard Bernstein, who reflected all the emotional turmoil of the music he conducted in his facial expressions (unlike the more poker-faced types like Lorin Maazel and Fritz Reiner and even Leopold Stokowski).  The orchestra responded well.

In the Concerto, Anderszewski brought his highly personalized approach, familiar from his recordings of several of the Mozart concerti on Virgin Classics discs with the German Chamber Philharmonic.  In the recordings, Anderszewski conducts from the keyboard, so one would have thought Gardiner's presence superfluous in this piece, but not so at all!  For one thing, Concerto No. 18 seems to have more substantive and extended tutti passages without solo than many of the other concerti, and Gardiner was a definite presence at all times, interacting with his soloist to a high degree of coordination.  The result was an intensely dramatic reading.  (Clearly, Gardiner considers Mozart a dramatic, romantic composer, to judge by his work in all three pieces last night.) 

I was unable to form as much of an appreciation for Toby Spence, the tenor soloist in the Britten, because of my seat in relation to where he sang and faced.  My view of him was blocked by the conductor, and he was singing out into the hall, away from me, so his voice tended to be covered at times by the string orchestra.  What I could hear was quite fine, a beautiful, big, well-focused warm voice and a keen appreciation for the text.  Mr. DiBello's horn solos were superb.  The string orchestra created vistas of extraordinary beauty with Britten's orchestration.  Gardiner seemed totally at home in the piece and the result was a stunning performance.  I was glad to have the lyrics in front of me, however, since, as noted, the voice was covered some of the time due not to any shortcomings of the performers but more due to where I was seated.  (I can barely imagine what the fans in the bleachers behind the orchestra were hearing during this number.  Some more thought needs to be given to placement of vocal soloists at Mostly Mozart...)

Finally, the symphony, which was a real triumph for Gardiner and the orchestra.  I found him fascinating to watch, and clearly the orchestra did as well, because they responded magnificently to his lead in making this a very dramatic rendition of the least-well-known of Mozart's final big three symphonies.  I have to confess that it is #3 with me, after the 40th and 41st symphonies, but such a fine performance shows that it is no less accomplished a work, and in many ways more sophisticated than I had recalled.  My one regret: No repeats were taken in the finale.  I expect this was because the concert was a bit long for the allotted time.  The website suggests a 2 hour concert, but this one came in at 2 hours and ten minutes, and repeats in the finale would have added a few more.  But this makes the finale a bit slight after the lengthy first two movements and a fairly substantial minuet.  That apart, I found this performance of the finale excellent, invigorating (I loved the woodwinds especially here and in the trio of the minuet) and indeed the entire concert was performed at a level of excellence far exceeding the standard of Mostly Mozart in the years before Louis Langree became music director.  This is truly superb music-making.  I regret that my next two weeks in Florida will keep me from attending any more concerts in this series until toward the very end.