Word: mozart
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...orchestra itself began its program with another piece by Mozart: the Overture to The Magic Flute. One of his last works, composed in the summer of 1791, The Magic Flute tells the tale of lovers in the struggle between good and evil in a magical world. The overture itself begins with a drawn-out progression of three chords, which add an overarching solemnness to the otherwise warm and lighthearted mood of the piece. Mozart develops his musical ideas in a straightforward way, referring only once to the music within the opera. Filling in for BSO Principal Guest Conductor Bernard Haitink...
Lehmann got a chance to put his impressive verve on display, leading a program of works that would have come to nothing without verve. The concert began with the overture to Mozart's The Magic Flute, a work with self-evident charm. Its first notes were jarring from lack of unison, but things picked up quickly. The brass enjoyed a fine moment, as did flutist Kimberly Arkin '98. The finale hinted loudly at the volume of sound the orchestra would transmit later in the evening...
...second part of the program made for a strange coincidence: that same evening, the BSO performed both the overture to The Magic Flute and a Mozart piano concerto. But if you missed hearing Freshman Concerto Competition winner Andrew Park '01 because you were at Symphony Hall for Murray Perahia, you may have missed...
Park's Harvard debut (Mozart's ninth piano concerto, in E-flat, K. 271) was stunning, in part because it didn't require some blatantly virtuosic vehicle. When a fellow who played the Rachmaninoff Second at the age of 14 decides to gamble on his musicianship more than on his technique, it is doubly impressive...
Park's performance of the first movement had a smoothness that was sometimes even glib; the orchestra must have found it hard to follow. His trills were appealingly steady and even, and his left hand octaves (so often bangily overdone in Mozart) were gems of control--in this surpassing even Andreas Haefliger's performance in last year's Bank of Boston Celebrity Series. But beyond pure technique, his pedaling and phrase-shaping demonstrated a great ear. The orchestra adequately reinforced and developed all the musical ideas, but Park's was the artistic voice of authority...