Masterworks: Mozart & Beethoven

Part of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s annual Setting Up Camp programme, Masterworks will be off on a brisk tour to Blenheim, Nelson, Manukau City, and Kerikeri. I once came across the NZSO and its impressive logistics at Blenheim airport but hadn’t really thought about musical preparation. The artistic team must create a programme to engage audiences who have the luxury of attending live performances often, and excite those who have few of those opportunities. Enter Masterworks: Mozart & Beethoven.

Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No.1 opened with the evocative Morning Mood. A lightness of tone was especially apparent in Anitra’s Dance, where delicate pizzicato was matched by nimble bowing.

NZSO concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppänen’s performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 was the evening’s highlight. As CE Marc Feldman told us in his well-pitched introduction, this concerto is from the time Mozart was starting to mature, aged 19. Leppänen delivered a calm, composed performance. His cadenzas were beautifully played, delicate, graceful, and expressive, not letting youth run away with a moment in the spotlight. His solo passages were executed thoughtfully and through the second and third movements we could feel him leading and bringing the orchestra with him much more than just being accompanied by them. This is also testament to admirable restraint on Judd’s part, letting the whole of the NZSO do what they do best.

The many layers of Briar Prastiti’s The Garden were atmospheric and complex. In nature ‘the more you look the more you see’ can also be true in music when ‘the more you listen the more you hear’.

Feldman told us Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, Pastoral, was modern for its time. If you listen beyond the pastoral themes, you can hear a modernity in the Allegro, where syncopation, dynamics, and orchestration have a ‘Beethoven feel’ and contrast with the idyllic other movements. Every resolution to the theme is different (but similar) and Judd accentuated this with a different dynamic for each.