On an impulse I went to see the CSO’s “Letters from Mozart” last Friday night. Good impulse.
Conductor Scott O’Neil narrated, and read excerpts from Mozart’s correspondence, between musical numbers. The first was the first movement of Mozart’s first symphony (composed when he was 8 years old), and the program ended with the fourth and final movement of his last.
They didn’t spare the horses – or the personnel – for this show. The Symphony Chorus was out in force, and there were guest artists: soprano (Christie Hageman) and pianist (Katie Mahan).
Because I’m a musical ignoramus, I can admit here that I needed reminding that Mozart’s life was so short. Even seeing Amadeus on stage several years ago at London’s Old Vic didn’t plant that fact deeply enough in my brain. It’s only natural. We had center seats near the front, the marvelous David Suchet owned. the. stage. as Salieri, and the pale dying Mozart faded fast from my memory.
Oh, back to the doings onstage Friday night at Boettcher Concert Hall, that strange. user-unfriendly, and annoying artifact of the 1970′s.
The music, a Mozart sampler, was by turns, grand, lively, sad, touching, complicated. I enjoyed all of it. I liked best the mournful piece from the Sinfonia concertante (K. 364), and the selection from the “Dissonance” string quartet. I was also fascinated by the pianist’s astounding horizontally striped dress. Fuzzy phone photo attached.
Let’s not forget the unsung efforts of the stagehands. While O’Neil was narrating between numbers, the black-clad men and women of the crew smoothly and silently rearranged, brought onstage, or removed, chairs, microphones, stands, and even the grand piano. So that each time O’Neil quit talking and turned back to the musicians to raise the baton, everyone and everything was in position and ready to go. Nice work.
