Having already performed the entire piano concerti of Mozart, Manchester's "renegade" orchestra now turned their attention to his horn concertos. In the first of two concerts at the Stoller Hall, a reduced size "chamber" orchestra, under the dedicated and enlightened direction of maestro Gabor Takacs-Nagy, they performed three concerto works of Mozart with a couple of other contemporaneous works in between.
Our horn soloist this evening was the excellent Martin Owen, whose personable stage presence did not bely his technical expertise and mastery of the instrument.
In Takacs-Nagy's introduction he said that once, back in his native Hungary, a fellow musician told him that in order to play Mozart, you must yourself return to childhood; and it seems that this is something upon which both he and Owen agreed. The emphasis on the playing of these pieces was fun, fun and fun. Mozart's genius is undeniable, but his playfulness, and childish jokes - which he incorporated into his scores with ease and glee - have rarely been brought to the fore and glorified in quite as much as this evening. I do believe that if Mozart were to have been in the audience, he would have been extremely proud and happy.
Mozart had a long and healthy friendship with Joseph Lautgeb, whose horn playing was always being put to the test as Mozart wrote passages of increasing difficulty always testing him, even leaving swearing and "in-jokes" in his scores for Lautgeb to see and laugh over. We were treated to them all ourselves this evening. Mozart's pieces were light, bright, ebullient, and played with obvious love and skill.
In between the playing of horn concertos 1 and 2, we heard a piece of music completely new to me from a composer I had never heard of. Her name Marianne Martinez, was a contemporary of Mozart, and although she was of Spanish heritage, lived in Vienna, unbelievably in the same house as Joseph Haydn, from whom she took piano lessons. Her Sinfonia in C was perhaps the most mature and serious piece of music the orchestra played the whole evening. In three short movements (in the Italian style), the melodies and inventions were surprisingly beautiful and made a lovely inclusion to this concert.
In the second half, after listening to Mozart's Rondo for horn and orchestra - a piece we were told that included the lost and recently found 60 bars of music which are missing from nearly all recordings of this piece, the finale was Haydn's symphony no.94, his "surprise". Haydn was also a practical joker and loved to tease and test his audience, and in this symphony, he does that by his violent and sudden changes in volume, which again were superbly realised by Takas-Nagy and the orchestra.
A real joy to watch a soloist, conductor and orchestra who are all so obviously enjoying every second of their stage time, performing with finesse and panache, and relishing the opportunity to perform these works for an appreciative audience.
Reviewer - Alastair Zyggu
on - 2.4.25
