San Francisco Classical Voice

EARLY MUSIC REVIEW

Philharmonia Baroque
Mari Kodama

Nicholas Kraemer

October 15, 2006

Mari Kodama

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A Pact With Perfection

By Michael Zwiebach

The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra has an unspoken pact with its audience: Their performances are supposed to be out of the ordinary, and not just in terms of quality. The repertory, the instrument’s sounds, and the interpretations breathe freshness and highlight the unusual. On Sunday night at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church, in a program of Vienna’s heavy hitters led with spirit and polish by guest conductor Nicholas Kraemer, Philharmonia’s players resorted to a little gamesmanship to keep that promise. But they did their job — Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven have rarely sounded so novel and, well, funky.

The hors d’oeuvre was Mozart’s ballet music for Les petits riens, K. Anh. 10/ 299b. Written in 1778 when Mozart was in Paris, part of the score was a collaboration with other composers. So, overture excepted, it is rarely performed. The overture was a great concert opener; Mozart supplied it with plenty of brass fanfares and brilliant orchestral writing. In Philharmonia’s performance, the brass section was a little overpowering, but it was their chance to shine and they administered a bracing shock that got everyone’s attention. The rest of the ballet music was new to me. There were some cute touches — a flute duet with one of the pair offstage, and a finale in hunting style with horn calls resounding throughout. It was pleasant, lively, and tuneful, but not a neglected masterwork.

Mozart’s "Linz" Symphony No. 36 in C Major, K. 425, was more challenging. Unlike a modern symphony orchestra, which reduces its forces to play classical pieces, Philharmonia is already a small group. The string players had to work hard to balance the winds and brass, who were seated to the right of Kraemer, instead of behind the string section as in a modern orchestra. So there was extra tension in this big, public piece as performed by the Philharmonia.

Bringing out the marvelous in Mozart

The performance began a little off track. Trumpets and horns, energized by their work in the ballet music, overbalanced the strings throughout much of the piece. The shaping of the opening phrases of the first movement Allegro was a little lifeless, with the second violins’ counterpoint emerging only fitfully. The fanfare sections brought the orchestra together again, however, and then the piece took off. The brilliantly inventive rhythms of the Adagio were played with balletlike grace. The final phrases of that movement were given ample space in a lingering farewell that was stiffened by brass and timpani. Gonzalo Ruiz contributed a sweet-toned, lyrical oboe solo in the Trio of the Menuetto. And the strings dashed into the Presto finale at full throttle. They showed their mettle when occasionally pushed by the brass, all the while remaining rhythmically meticulous and in tempo. The details of Mozart’s phrasing were underlined and given subtle dynamic shading. It was a marvelous ending.

The second half brought the evening’s soloist, fortepianist Mari Kodama, to the stage for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 19. (This was actually Beethoven’s first concerto, written in 1795 and revised in 1798.) It’s the work of a mature composer, but it suffers from comparisons with his later concertos, which display the adventurous and dramatic writing for keyboard that we associate with the composer. You can hear that contrast in the cadenza to the first movement, composed much later than the rest of the concerto, which exploits the extremes of the fortepiano’s range and features the chiaroscuro and fuller textures of his later keyboard work. But the piece needs to be heard with that later Beethoven set aside.

Kodama’s performance of the work on fortepiano was a strong antidote to preconceptions. Instead of striding into the work, she made a delicate, filigreed entrance before punching a vigorous forte as she took over the opening theme. Of course, her instrument doesn’t have the power of a modern piano. Kodama compensated with variety of touch and a restrained use of the sustain mechanism. But she was not a fainting lily and was capable of drawing a volume of sound from the instrument without banging. The vitality of her pianism made a case for her underappreciated instrument as well as for Beethoven’s piece.

Musical marriages and Haydn's humor

Not surprisingly, this concerto doesn’t call for many power chords, and the biggest fortissimo crash comes at the end of the lyrical second movement, in a dramatic outburst that is echoed by the orchestra. The piano then returns "with great expression," playing an arching figure that turns into sighs, underscored by fragments of the opening theme. That figure subsides to a trill that gradually descends to the leading tone, at which point the orchestra gently brings the music to rest. Here the performance achieved incandescence, intense feeling married to fluid spontaneity in the exchanges between soloist and orchestra. It was a beautiful example of the cooperation between Kodama and Kraemer and made this performance special.

With the last piece on the program came the showmanship. Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 90 in C Major is not the most often played of the composer’s late symphonies, but it’s an absolute gem. The Philharmonia played it with joyous abandon, pulling out all the stops. Again, there were terrific contributions from the wind players, particularly Ruiz and flutist Janet See. There was a dashing, spectacular last movement with flashy passagework for the strings. And then it all came to a rather abrupt stop, at which point Kraemer leapt off his podium and the audience responded with applause. More of Haydn’s wit, we assumed. But the musicians were having fun with us. Concertmaster Katherine Kyme pointed with her bow to the score and Kraemer made a big show of being abashed, and returned to the podium to complete the movement.

Haydn’s joke, of course, was a four-measure pause in the middle of the movement, before a strange and unexpected shift from C Major to D-flat. (And how’s this for an example of farsighted programming: A surprise move from C to D-flat also marks the first ritornello of Beethoven’s concerto.) Just to drive the point home, Kraemer took the marked, but rarely performed, repeat of the movement’s second half. At the strange cadence, he turned to the audience and cocked an eyebrow. Finally, after bringing the music home with appealing brio, he cued the audience to applaud. We were all relieved not to have the decision in our own hands.