This all-Mozart concert from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment – a repeat programme given recently at the Queen Elizabeth Hall entitled Mozart on the Road – focused on the year 1784 when the 28-year-old composer was at the peak of his fame. Recently married and settled in Vienna, Mozart enjoyed a regular supply of pupils, and his concert engagements enabled a measure of financial security. It was also a period when Mozart discovered his fully mature musical voice and masterpieces began to flow from his pen.
One such masterpiece is his wonderful Quintet in E flat major for Piano and Winds, K452, a work showing his special affinity for wind sonorities, but one curiously that remained a very singular instrumental combination within his oeuvre. An introduction by clarinettist Katherine Spencer informed us of the lightning speed with which Mozart completed this work and made an enigmatic reference to the relationship between Mozart and Anton Stadler. All very enlightening, but regrettably no mention of the make or sound of the fortepiano occupying the space next to her – a missed opportunity that might have prepared us for the keyboard’s uneven tone – quietly sonorous in the bass and silvery above.
That said, the performance was a delight with soloist Kristian Bezuidenhout leading from the fortepiano, glittering when alone or unobtrusively merging into the ensemble. As sensitive as the principal OAE wind players were – Clara Espinosa Encinas (oboe), Katherine Spencer (clarinet), Roger Montgomery (horn) and Jane Gower (bassoon) – there were balance problems when Bezuidenhout’s bone china tone was occasionally hidden. But in the more transparent textures of the slow movement there was no doubting the mellifluous exchanges and shared confidences, each player knowing when to assume the limelight or slip back into the shadows. A striking cadenza for all five players at the end of the Finale brought an otherwise slightly too safe Allegretto to an invigorating conclusion.
Balance issues between players and Bezuidenhout all but disappeared with Mozart’s Piano Concerto no 17 in G major, considerably helped by the return of the fortepiano’s lid to project the sound towards the audience. With just the odd gesture, Bezuidenhout led a tidy performance, the first movement all clean sheets and hospital corners, though nothing starchy in the buoyant relationship between keyboard and orchestra, coloured by tangy woodwinds and genial horns. Within the Andante he created a special atmosphere, his gentle touch calibrated like a master craftsman. No less sensitive was the OAE in its support whether applying tenderness or weight.
The latter was evident in a bracing account of Mozart’s Symphony no 36 in C major, “Linz”, where Bezuidenhout presided at the fortepiano. He occasionally underpinned bass lines and added the odd flourish between the enthusiastic galvanising of his forces, now enriched by two trumpets and timpani. The work’s festive element was strongly evident in the outer movements and partially lingered in the Andante, unusually featuring the entire orchestra. Within the neatly propelled Menuetto a fine oboe solo was anchored by a solo quintet of strings, but it was the feverish excitement of the closing Presto, perhaps reflecting the speed with which the work was written, that crowned a performance of orchestral delicacy and firepower.
