Concert Review: The Shaper of Worlds

Mostly Mozart ends with Haydn's Creation.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

And lo he said, let there be light: Mostly Mozart music director Louis Langrée.
Photo © 2015 Mostly Mozart/Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The 2015 Mostly Mozart Festival ended last week with two performances of Haydn's The Creation, that highly stylized oratorio built around the early events of the Book of Genesis. Haydn's work is one of beginnings and creation from the void, and was an apt choice to end a successful run by the oldest Lincoln Center event, one that has largely succeeded in reinventing itself and its image in the face of a challenging musical environment.

Concert Review: Double Reeds and Souls in Need

Matthias Goerne at Mostly Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Matthias Goerne appeared at Mostly Mozart this week.
Photo by Marco Borggreve © harmonia mundi. 

The Mostly Mozart Festival took a serious turn on Wednesday night with a program focusing on the twin ideas of loss and death. The program marked the return of music director Louis Langrée to the helm of the Festival Orchestra, with a program that started and ended with Mozart symphonies, flanking vocal works by Bach and Schubert. With special guest Matthias Goerne singing the vocal works on the program, this was an example of what this Festival does very well indeed, hewing close to its core composer and supplementing the Mozart catalogue with works that came before and after.

Concert Review: His Aim is True

Edward Gardner energizes Mostly Mozart. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The always serene Edward Gardner in 2013 at the BBC Proms.
Photo © 2013 The British Broadcasting Company.

Sometimes a fresh baton is needed. That was the case this Friday evening at the Mostly Mozart Festival, where conductor Edward Gardner stepped up to lead the Festival Orchestra in familiar works by Mozart (natch) Beethoven and Carl Maria von Weber. Although this program, featuring guest pianist Steven Osborne was nothing out of the ordinary for such a long-running event, but the musicians seemed to be playing with fresh energy and vigor.

Concert Review: It's Gotta Be the Shoes

Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the Emerson String Quartet at Mostly Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Steve Madden Caviarr Rhinestone Slip-On. In Men's Sizes.

The annual visit to Mostly Mozart by the Emerson String Quartet is a joyous occasion, a cnahnce for New Yokrkers trapped in the sweltering and ever deepening canyons of  gotham to hear one of the best chamber music ensembles in the country without leaving the fortress of Manhattan. On Monday night at Alice Tully Hall, the eminent Emersons were joined by French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet for a program of Mozart, Beethoven and Fauré at Alice Tully Hall.

Concert Review: The Sinister Urge

Jeremy Denk at Mostly Mozart. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The pianist Jeremy Denk played Mostly Mozart on Friday night.
Photo from JeremyDenk.net © 2015 Nonesuch Records.

The Chaconne from Bach's Partita No. 2 for Solo Violin is one of the most challenging pieces to perform for great length (14 minutes) and technical demands on the solo performer. On Friday evening, pianist Jeremy Denk opened his appearance at this year's Mostly Mozart festival with an even more difficult version of this piece: the transcription for solo piano written by Johannes Brahms, designed to be played by the left hand only.

Concert Review: His Back Pages

Mostly Mozart 2015 opens with rarities from the composer’s catalogue.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Louis Langrée (center) leads the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.
Photo © 2015 by Richard Termine for the Mostly Mozart Festival.

Although Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at 37, he left a catalogue of music that is staggering in its size and artistic breath. Mozart was five years old when he wrote his first three keyboard pieces, and 14 when his first successful opera (Mitridate) premiered. On Tuesday night, Mostly Mozart offered a look into the dark corners of Mozart’s fast catalogue, playing a program of realities rarities to open its 49th festival season.

Festival Preview: Mostly Mozart 2015

Lincoln Center's longest-running festival event returns for its 49th season.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

This year's Mostly Mozart Festival features optically enhanced Mozart. 
Either that or he's trying to look cool.
Image by StrangeStore

Before there was the Lincoln Center Festival, Midsummer Night's Swing or Lincoln Center Out of Doors, there was Mostly Mozart. This venerable celebration of all things classical, medium-sized and small returns to the Upper West Side for a month starting in the last week of July and continuing through the first three weeks of August. This year's schedule includes the New York premiere of George Benjamin's opera Written on Skin and appearances from piano luminaries like Pierre Laurent-Aimard, Jeremy Denk and Emanuel Ax, baritone Matthias Goerne and cellist Sol Gabetta in her Festival debut.