Happy birthday Mozart! SSO members present a delightful tribute

By Dana Wen

This week marks the 254th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, kicking off commemorative concerts across the globe. Here in Seattle, members of the Seattle Symphony presented a delightful program of the great composer’s chamber music to celebrate the event. The well-attended Tuesday night recital, a day before Mozart’s birthday on January 27, was held in Benaroya Hall’s intimate Nordstrom Recital Hall. It was a pleasant surprise to see the room so full on a cold weeknight. The enthusiasm of the crowd served as a testament to the success of the Seattle Symphony’s small chamber music series. This Mozart tribute proved to be no exception to this rule. The four works on the program did an excellent job of showcasing the symphony’s talent while representing various sides of Mozart’s personality.

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The concert opened with Mozart’s quartet for oboe, violin, viola, and cello. Stefan Farkas, who typically plays English horn in the orchestra, gave an impressive performance on the oboe. His technically superb playing and buoyant tone soared above the harmonious blending of the strings.

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The liveliness of the oboe quartet set the mood for the uproarious performance that followed. A pair of French horn players and a string quartet took to the stage for a madcap rendition of Mozart’s grand parody, A Musical Joke. This piece, which highlights the composer’s prankster tendencies, pokes fun at various aspects of Mozart’s musical world, including flowery violin cadenzas, hornists who can’t transpose properly, and most notably, mediocre composers who employ the most cloying musical cliches of the day.

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A performance of A Musical Joke provides the opportunity for the musicians to cut loose and have some fun. Here, the symphony members were in top form with many tricks up their sleeves. Principal Violist Susan Gulkis Assadi was hilarious as an attention-seeking viola player attempting to make the most of the lengthy trills in her part. Mark Robbins and Susan Carroll took advantage of the strings-only second movement to put down their horns, sample some fine wine, and catch up on the latest in the comics and tabloids. Other notable performances were a wine-chugging first violinist (Associate Concertmaster Emma McGrath), a lightning-fast metronome, and the ubiquitous cell phone disturbance. Definitely a crowd-pleaser!

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After this silly fun, the second half of the program returned to earth with two monumental chamber works: the B-flat major Sonata for Piano & Violin and the “Dissonance” String Quartet. Concertmaster Maria Larionoff was joined by the symphony’s resident pianist Kimberly Russ for the sonata. Although Larionoff’s playing was bold and impressive, she tended to dominate the performance at times. I would have liked to hear more of Mozart’s charming, delicate piano filigree.

Written in honor of his friend and fellow composer Franz Joseph Haydn, the “Dissonance” String Quartet is considered one of Mozart’s finest works in the genre. Although the work begins in the bright key of C major, the startling dissonant harmonies that give the piece its nickname lend intrigue to the work and hint at the types of harmonies used by composers decades later in the Romantic era. It’s a challenging, complex work, and Tuesday’s performance paid tribute to its groundbreaking nature. The constant collaboration and communication between all four members of the quartet resulted in a nuanced performance that was my personal favorite of the evening. I especially enjoyed the contributions made by violist Arie Schachter and cellist Meeka Quan DiLorenzo. Both provided solid support for the two violinists while infusing the performance with a diverse palette of color, texture, and character. As first violin, Artur Girsky  expertly navigated the ensemble through the harmonic meanderings of the work. I was not surprised to discover that he and second violinist Gennady Filimonov regularly play together as members of the local string ensemble ODEONQUARTET.

I’m pleased that the Seattle Symphony decided to celebrate Mozart’s birthday with a chamber music recital. Concerts such as these aren’t just a vehicle for the Seattle Symphony to showcase the many musical talents of its members. They are also opportunities for us, the public, to hear the individual voices of the musicians of the orchestra. Many of those who played at Tuesday’s concert serve as section leaders, but hearing them play a brief solo in the midst of a epic orchestral work is much different than seeing them up close and hearing them collaborate as a member of a trio or quartet. Events like Tuesday’s recital put a spotlight on musicianship and personality, a befitting way to honor a beloved composer whose musical genius and ebullient character are remembered to this day. Mozart would be charmed, I’m sure.