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FESTIVAL REVIEW
July 28, 2004
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By John McCarthy
Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the Midsummer Mozart Festival returned to the Palace of Legion of Honor to open its 2004 season Thursday under George Cleve, with eminent guest pianist Seymour Lipkin. All the works presented were written in the 1780's and with obvious key relationships among the pieces. This was clearly a carefully planned program, and the attention to long-range musical continuity and form-building was as evident in the playing as in the planning.
The Adagio and Fugue in C minor, K.546, which opened the concert, is not an ingratiating work. Instead there is a solemnity and mysterious quality to it, and Cleve's pacing and ability strongly to shape the opening kept it from becoming static. Originally written for two pianos and transcribed by Mozart himself for strings (with the short Adagio added in the string version), its drama is more fully realized with the string orchestra. The angular fugue was regrettably marred by a bit of ensemble sloppiness toward the ending of the piece.
Nothing is known of the circumstances in which Mozart's E-flat-major Symphony, K. 543, was first performed, or indeed of the actual size of his ensemble. It is possible that the number of strings was only marginally greater than that of the winds, raising some fascinating questions of texture and balance. Cleve and the winds seemed to relish the opportunities that Mozart gave them in the wonderful contrapuntal and imitative writing, at all times finely balancing the wind forces with the strings.
The first chord of the Symphony was big, bold and weighty. Cleve's performances generally manage to be sturdy and monumental without being grandiose. The characteristic warm, full sound was present in the introduction, and dissonance came out sharply and surprisingly in that sonority. Cleve fully entered the drama of the development section, sculpting musical phrases throughout. The second movement, marked “Andante con moto,” flowed lyrically with great spaciousness. The minuet was done with urgency, intensity and in a true Allegretto tempo. Winds, especially the clarinet, shone in this third movement. The sparkling finale movement was buoyant and unforced. Cleve devoted the entire second half of the concert to the dark Piano Concerto in C minor, K 491, with Seymour Lipkin at the keyboard. Considering the dramatic passion and symphonic scope of the concerto, nothing comes to mind that could have followed it. Rather than take us by storm, Lipkin's playing was understated, utterly without eccentricity or artifice. The opening entry for piano is about as musically difficult as it gets for the soloist, and Lipkin played with warmth and deep understanding. There is a grandeur to his playing that is at all times in proportion and in service to the music. Lipkin is one of the great teachers of our time, and this was an object lesson and a reminder of what is musically possible in this age of spin and spectacle. Cleve had been a piano student of Seymour Lipkin in New York, perhaps accounting in part for the uncanny closeness of collaboration between the two of them. This is one of only three Mozart piano concertos including clarinet, and the wind writing is exceptionally rich. On Thursday there was a convincing balance among winds, strings and piano. Spontaneous and elegant playing from the orchestra, encouraged by Cleve, made for a co-operative musical venture throughout the concert and an auspicious opening to the Festival.
(John McCarthy is a pianist and teacher. He is Director of Preparatory and Extension Divisions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.)
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Seymour Lipkin
George Cleve