Emmanuel Ax Opens This Year’s Mostly Mozart Festival

Lincoln Center, New York City, July 28, 2010. One thing I like about Emmanual Ax’s performances of Chopin is that they are so accurate. “Accurate” might seem a strange adjective to apply to Chopin, the piano keyboard’s supreme romantic, until one realizes that Chopin’s two favorite composers were Bach and Mozart (this according to musicologist Alan Walker during his fascinating pre-concert lecture). While performing Chopin’s Concerto No. 2, Emmanuel Ax shunned the swooning school of Chopin performance, which today is best exemplified by superstar Bang Bang, to give us, instead, fluid, proportioned, graceful phrasings, and thoughtful interpretations. Ax must believe, as I do, that all of the beauty and passion is already built into the music by Chopin himself, and that the performer’s task is to interpret what is already there, and not to sentimentalize. There is no better Chopin interpreter around today than Ax, whose long connection with this composer keeps deepening.

Louis Langree conducted two Mozart works, the overture to La clemenza di Tito, and the “Haffner” Symphony. Both accounts showed how exciting, graceful, and beautiful Mozart can be, and how many mood changes must be negotiated in one work. Making each transition flawlessly, Langree’s robust approach demonstrated why Mozart is revered today: he’s a thoroughly modern composer, one who will never become a museum piece as long as there are musicians like Langree and these orchestra players around to prevent Mozart’s frequently-played works from sounding routine.

Also on the program was the mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, whose robust voice was surprisingly well suited to the two works she so beautifully sang: a Handel aria from Giulio Cesare, and “Che faro senza Euridice” from Gluck’s Orfeo. But her encore, “Ombra mai fu” from Handel’s “Serse,” was for me the highpoint of her singing. Seemingly coming from no where, she produced an ethereal tone that progressed into a ravishing splendor, which left the audience spellbound until someone broke the silence to begin thunderous applause and cheering.