Reviews
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
Mozart 250th Birthday Concert, Cadogan Hall (13 Feb 2006)
It has been done before in Germany, but not in Britain. As the audience
left the hall, CDs of the first half of the concert were already on sale
and television cameras were fighting for a place to film the first
customers in the queue. Whatever next - instant reviews being handed out
at the exit door?
When everybody else is giving Mozart 250th birthday concerts too, the
Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists found a clever way of
turning the spotlight in their direction. Thursday's concert marked the
culmination of their Mozart tour round Europe and the US, and half the
British media were there in Chelsea to witness it.
The programme was neatly planned with a CD-length first half - two of
Mozart's three great last symphonies, Nos. 39 and 41. It was fascinating
to hear John Eliot Gardiner conducting Mozart only two days after Roger
Norrington, his period specialist contemporary. Whereas Norrington lives
for the moment, throwing in quirky ideas that you might not want to hear
twice, Gardiner is a CD producer's dream, polishing up the standard
ideas about Mozart to a gleaming level of precision. Both performances
were beautifully detailed, despite the air being tense with "One wrong
note and you'll never live it down" edginess. I am playing the CD as I
write and the sound is remarkably clear. Obviously the microphones had
the best seat in the house.
Still, without wanting to be ungrateful, the piece we really wanted on
the disc was the towering C Minor Mass after the interval. Here
everybody on the stage heaved a sigh of relief and relaxed. Maybe a
recording would not sell without star soloists (though Katharine Fuge
from the ranks of the choir sang a lovely, totally unshowy "Et
incarnatus est"), but did Mozart ever hear choral singing to rival this?
I doubt it.
Hats off to the audience, who sat through the first half without so much
as a single cough or fidget or other audible sign of conscious life. If,
in fact, they were all asleep, at least they can take the CD home to
find out what they missed.
Richard Fairman
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