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By Matthew Westphal
21 Feb 2007
The ingredients may not be 51% Mozart this particular summer, but Lincoln Center has a particularly varied musical menu planned for the 2007 Mostly Mozart Festival. Programming themes include focuses on Beethoven and on Latin American music, as well as an exploration of spirituality in music featuring landmark choral masterpieces from four centuries; among the festival's highlights will be the program of a mammoth concert Beethoven organized in Vienna in 1808, a reprise of Mark Morris's Mozart Dances, a visual art installation adorning Avery Fisher Hall, two Schubert symphonies on period instruments, and two major works by Osvaldo Golijov, the festival's first (living) composer-in-residence.
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| Mostly Mozart 2007's two composers-in-residence: Osvaldo Golijov and WAM himself. |
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| photo by John Sann/DG (Golijov) |
The Beethoven focus continues through the festival's first week, with the St. Lawrence String Quartet traversing the composer's late quartets in three off-hour concerts (August 1-3); Paavo Järvi conducting the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (August 2) in the Symphony No. 7 and the Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Ingrid Fliter; and an afternoon of video presentations under the title "Glenn Gould Plays Beethoven" (August 5).
August 4 will see a veritable Beethoven bacchanale: a two-part concert offering the same program Beethoven himself presented in a legendary four-four marathon performance at Vienna's Theater an der Wien in 1808. Langrée will lead the MMFO and the Swedish Radio Choir in the Sixth Symphony, the concert aria "Ah! perfido" (with soprano Anja Kampe), the Gloria from the Mass in C major, the Piano Concerto No. 4 (with soloist Jeffrey Kahane), the Fifth Symphony, the Sanctus from the Mass in C major, and the "Choral Fantasy."
The theme of spirituality in music will be explored with performances of five sacred masterpieces (in addition to the Beethoven works at the marathon concert): Fauré's Requiem in its original version of 1893, performed by the Swedish Radio Choir and MMFO under Langrée's baton (August 7); Rachmaninoff's Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, again sung by the Swedish Radio Choir (August 8); Golijov's La Pasión según San Marcos, performed by the Schola Cantorum of Caracas under conductor Robert Spano (August 18-19); Diego Fasolis conducting the ensemble I Barocchisti and the Swiss Radio Choir (Lugano) in Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 (August 20); and, to close the festival, Langrée conducting the MMFO and the Schola Cantorum of Caracas in Mozart's Requiem (August 24-25).
Also tying in with the music and spirituality theme will be a visual art installation by the OpenEnded Group, the three-man collective responsible for Enlightenment at Mostly Mozart 2006. The new artwork will feature large banners hung from columns on two sides of Avery Fisher Hall's façade, with printed texts and diagrams illuminated by computerized lighting combining with amplified music.
Latin American sounds will be featured in a "late-night jam session" arranged by Golijov on August 19: several musicians performing in his Pasión según San Marcos will take part, as will special guest Cristina Pato, a virtuoso on the Galician bagpipes who has played with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble. On the festival's closing program, alongside the Mozart Requiem, the Schola Cantorum of Caracas will sing 20th- and 21st-century a cappella works from South America.
Period-instrument concerts will include, in addition to the Monteverdi Vespers, two programs of Mozart music for winds played by the ensemble Zefiro (August 11-12), and Schubert's Eighth and Ninth Symphonies performed by the Netherlands-based Orchestra of the 18th Century under conductor Frans Brüggen (August 23). (The Monteverdi and Schubert concerts were programmed by Golijov, who considers those works particularly important to him.)
Among the other notable visiting artists at Mostly Mozart this summer are violinists Christian Tetzlaff and Joshua Bell, pianists Marc-André Hamelin and Shai Wosner, and conductors Ludovic Morlot and Osmo Vänskä.
Once again this year, the festival will reconfigure Avery Fisher Hall to place the orchestra on a platform near the center of the auditorium, with additional audience seating on what is normally the stage.
Complete program information for the 2007 Mostly Mozart Festival is available (as are tickets) at www.lincolncenter.org.
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