Those of us who love the Great American Songbook have some sense of our deep debt to Frank Sinatra.
Do those of us who love Mostly Mozart have a similar sense of debt?
Sinatra? Mozart? What, you may be asking, is the connection?
We owe Lincoln Center's annual festival focusing on the works of Mozart in part to Sinatra. It all goes back over 40 years to a time when Philharmonic Hall (as it was then called) was new, and, though acoustically challenged, prestigious. Sinatra's managers called to book a concert there.
This call, according to a friend who was then on the Lincoln Center board, stimulated great agita in the board members. Whatever they thought of him as an artist, they deplored his personal life -- in those benighted days respectability counted for something. They feared for the reputation of the institution letting a disreputable performer sing there.
A project involving one of the world's most beloved composers, which had been under consideration, suddenly become urgent. If the hall was already booked for the date Sinatra wanted it would be impossible to rent it to him. If what was going on was a festival many dates would be impossible. Hence Mostly Mozart was a godsend.
It has indeed been, quite literally, a godsend for the last 45 years, rarely moreso than Tuesday night, when this year's festival began. (The program will be repeated tonight, Wednesday.)
The program began with one of Mozart's most familiar but most dazzling pieces, the overture to "The Marriage of Figaro." One of the magical things about this piece is the utter simplicity of its structure. But in the hands of Mostly Mozart artistic director Louis Langree, you could see all the orchestral colors that the piece revels in. For many years the Mostly Mozart orchestra was an amiable pickup group; under Langree, who became artistic director in 2002, it has become a first-rate ensemble, and the performance of this effervescent piece demonstrated it.
The meat and potatoes of the program was one of Mozart's greatest masterpieces, the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364. The soloists were the German violinist Christian Tetzlaff and the French violist Antoine Tamestit, making his festival debut. The two performed with impressive intensity and sensitivity. Especially in the cadenza to the second movement, the delicacy of the way they matched tones was breathtaking.
The range of emotions in this piece is quite extraordinary. From the majestic, then serene tones of the opening movement through the deeply felt feelings of the second to the almost hoedown vivacity of the third, it is truly a trip around the universe. Last night the journey was intoxicating.
American-born soprano Susanna Phillips sang two arias, "Non mi dir," from "Don Giovanni," and a concert aria, "Bella mia fiamma... resta, o cara," written while Mozart was in Prague for the premiere of "Don G." It was first performed there by a celebrated soprano who had befriended the composer many years earlier. Both pieces are fiendishly difficult but you would not know that from the ravishing way Phillips sang them.
Last on the program was the "Linz" Symphony, which I had never heard "live." It is a much weightier, more absorbing piece than I ever thought, and, like the "Figaro" overture, showed off the virtuosic skills of the orchestra.
It was one of those evenings where one felt privileged to be in the hall.
Thank you, Wolfgang. Thanks, Frank.