Concert Review: Lifting the Shroud

Paavo Järvi and Martin Fröst at Mostly Mozart.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The man and his horn: clarinetist Martin Fröst.
Photo from MartinFrost.se

The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra  got a chance to flex its musical muscles on Friday evening. They played the Clarinet Concerto by their namesake composer, bracketed by works from Arvo Pärt and Ludwig van Beethoven. This week’s guest conductor  was Paavo Järvi, eldest son of the conductor Neeme Järvi and (like his father) a versatile maestro with respectable international credentials.

Concert Review: The Man of the Hour

Ösmo Vänskä leads the National Symphony Orchestra.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Conductor Ösmo Vänskä in action.
Photo by Kyndall Harkness for vita.mn

The 2013-2014 season has offered few opportunities for East Coast listeners to hear Finnish conductor Ösmo Vänskä work his magic with the symphonies of his countryman Jean Sibelius. On Saturday evening, one of those opportunities presented itself as Mr. Vänskä led the National Symphony Orchestra in the second of two subscription concerts at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Concert Review: Beethoven Gets Eighty-Sixed

Mass in C closes Mostly Mozart Festival.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Clarinetist Martin Fröst did not wear
this hat on Saturday night.
Photo from tumblr.com 

The 2012 Mostly Mozart Festival ended on Saturday night with the second of two concerts featuring the composer's Clarinet Concerto with soloist Martin Fröst. The concerto, Mozart's last instrumental work, was paired with Beethoven's Mass in C Op. 86, one of the composer's least performed works. Festival music director Louis Langrée conducted.

Mozart wrote the Clarinet Concerto for soloist Anton Städler in 1791, the year he died. It features the sum tota of his abilities as a composer of passionate music that both charm and provoke. The work places great demands on the soloist, who must also provide a sweet tone that takes advantage of the clarinet's uncanny ability to imitate the human voice.

The autograph of Mozart's score is not available, but the work may have been based on an earlier work that the composer had planned for the bassett horn, a kind of alto claarinet with a disticnctive "angled" body. Mr. Fröst, who may be the first woodwind superstar in music since Heinz Holliger, played the work on an extended "bassett" clarinet (down to low C) to meet the required low notes.