San Francisco Classical Voice

The “6.5's” usually shrink the week's repertory, generally by one piece. Attending last week's other performances, for example, would have meant hearing Haydn's concert aria Scena di Berenice, plus two liturgical tropes surrounding Mozart's rather short mass, in a way to suggest an actual church performance. So the Friday audience missed out on the Haydn aria, a Mozart church sonata (organ and strings), and the lovely Mozart motet Ave verum corpus. Why, I know not. All are short works.

On the other hand, the program was much extended by Haselböck's too frequent discussions of the music, contemporaneous performance practices, and endless assurances of Vienna's 18th century glory. This music-appreciation lesson seemed pointless and frequently centered on who-cares information. Does anyone really care that all Viennese masses with trumpets in the orchestration had to be in C major? This is not, after all, a kiddy audience, or an unsophisticated one. Your average John or Jane Doe who knows little of the classics is hardly going to flock to a program of 18th century choral works, no matter how wonderful they genuinely are. Twice interrupting the performance of the mass to chat was way over the top.

Those quibbles aside, the performances were gratifying and on the whole excellent. Both Haydn pieces date from his first London residence. His English text for The Storm seems to have been fashioned by John Wolcot particularly for Haydn's setting. Lasting only about seven minutes, the text opens with Haydn's discrete storm pictures to, “Hark! The wild uproar of the winds.” The piece later resolves into a hymn-like prayer for the storm's eventual conclusion,”Oh blessed calm, return again.” That was a remarkably timely bit of picture painting, considering our recent weather.

Beautiful choral writing and startling harmonic shifts made a terrific effect, especially when so perfectly sung. The Storm seems almost like a study for the stormy segments in Haydn's two great oratorios to come, The Creation and The Seasons, though Haydn never slipped into the literalness of Beethoven's or Rossini's storm sounds. A major masterpiece it's not, but it is worthy of Haydn's genius.

Symphony No. 96 is one of the jewels of Haydn's first six "London" symphonies. Actually, all six are jewels, but the glitter and sheen of No. 96 outshines its immediate siblings. It's relatively short for a late Haydn symphony, deliberately compact. As with the Verdi operas, every note is meaningful, all proportions precise, the orchestration a sensational display of consummate craftsmanship. The "Miracle" nickname is deserved, not because of the concert incident which fostered it — a falling chandelier, during a performance, that missed hitting any of the audience — but because of Haydn's miraculous inspiration, which was even more uncanny for these four movements than usual. (In any case, the falling-chadelier incident was during a performance of Symphony No. 102 rather than this one; still, the name has stuck.)

Played to the tens, the performance made one nostalgic for all the Haydn the local band offered during the late 1960s and '70s, when the orchestra played three or four of the symphonies each season. Paul Freeman included No. 82, “The Bear,” on his debut concert, and (not yet Sir) Simon Rattle gave a terrific account of No. 60, “Il distratto.” Then there were the seasonal bouquets of Haydn symphonies conducted by Seiji Ozawa, who was more adventurous than most, daring to offer great works that do not rely on a nickname for success — symphonies such as No. 87 or the marvelous No. 89. And they proved to be good box office. It's a policy worth reviving.

Mozart's "Coronation" mass is one of his two most popular, the other being the incomplete C-minor, later reworked into the oratorio Davidde penitente. Both of these operatic masses featured Mozart in his full mature glory, memorably melodic, wonderfully to-the-point, and filled with little original touches. That last virtue could not have been easily attained, considering the array of liturgical rules and traditions associated with the form. One was simply expected to toe the line of expectations, being careful not to startle the clergy. That he turned out such a piece in the face of such restrictions speaks volumes about his complete skill. Even Salieri, who is supposed to have been so jealous of Mozart, admired the Mozart masses so much that he saw to church performances of them as part of his duties as court composer. (Salieri doesn't deserve the bad-mouthing he's constantly handed in the play and movie Amadeus.)

Haselböck took and held fine, basically lively tempos all evening, along with a keen sense of balanced sonority and accentuation. The orchestra was as sharp as a tack, and the chorus rich in timbre, perfect in intonation and balances. How lucky the city is, to have such quality musicians. The soloists? Well, they did well enough, although soprano Brandes tended to overdo dynamics, singing out above the ensemble during the quartet passages. By contrast, baritone Scarlata was best when the solo quartet was featured, but a little iffy in his rare snippets of solo work.

Haselböck's conducting antics were a major distraction: There was carrying-on that would make the defenders of Mitropoulos' or Bernstein's more extreme gestures blush. Every so often, Haselböck would actually go airborne, leaping three or four inches into the air. There were times when he seemed on the verge of actually jumping into the violins. Passion for the scores is admirable, but self-control even more so.

Then, too, the man is an organist of some repute, which possibly explains why his batonless fingers would start wiggling in air as if he were playing his instrument, all this accompanied by dancing to the scores — decorum be damned. How the musicians managed to keep from snickering during the performance, I have no idea. I couldn't. I've never seen the like, save for rare encounters with hard-rock bands.