Two Splendid Concerts

   Last Friday and Saturday I went to two outstanding concerts that could not have been different from each other. The first was by the Sinfonica Nacional in its home of Bellas Artes, the second was a recital for clarinet and piano in the Capilla Gótica of the Teatro Helénico.

   The Sinfonica’s was an all-Mozart concert, performed by a much-reduced orchestra (of course) that had taken its place in front of the great Tiffany curtain of the hall. The recital took place in a space I speculate as having been created as a monastery, with both architectural features and paintings on the walls testifying to that effect. The audience in both houses was very respectable in size, even if it did not fill the space to capacity.

     The only often-played Mozart work was the Symphony Number 39 in E-flat major, after the intermission. Symphony Number 27 opened the concert, a quite early one, followed by the 27^th piano concerto, a fairly late work. The pianist and conductor was the Israeli-born, David Greilsammer who, some years earlier, had demonstrated his mastery of Mozart by performing all of his piano concerti in an incredible marathon and all of his piano sonatas on another such occasion.

   Listeners could not have doubted that this conductor-pianist knew what Mozart was all about, because he felicitously refrained from “interpretations” (those are what are called scare quotes) and let Wolfgang Amadeus speak for himself. That sounds much easier than it is: when playing Mozart, there is no place to hide; you hear everything all the time, whether well performed or, as is often the case, just so-so. Greilsammer succeeded, both as conductor and pianist.

   And as conductor he got his Mozart-sized orchestra to play really well. It was a pleasure to hear such clean and musical performing; I surmise that they were masterfully drilled by their guest leader.

   As an encore, the bunch played what I surmised was the middle movement of an earlier piano concerto that turned out to be of the not-so-early 21^st.

  All and all, a very satisfying concert. Nor was I the only one who thought that. The applause was enthusiastic and was accompanied by shouts of approval. It was gratifying to hear that for a composer who died in 1791 and not just for Romantic giants like Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff.

   The next day, in that quasi-Romanesque hall, I heard very different music, in a recital for clarinet and piano. The opening after the intermission was the only item born in the same universe more or less as Mozart: transcriptions for clarinet of three Schubert songs, concluding with the moving “Meine Ruh ist hin, mein Herz ist schwer . . . .” from Goethe’s Faust.

   All the other works on the program were written in the 20^th century, with the opening a duo concertante by Milhaud and the major piece before the intermission a significant and quite wonderful sonata for the two instruments by Francis Poulenc.

   The venue after the intermission (and its Schubert opening) was further East: a multi-movement suite by the Polish composer, Witold Lutoslawski and four Hungarian dances by Kokai Rezso. A (you guessed it) Hungarian composer of the first half of the 20^th century. I suspect, though I most certainly don’t know this, that both these composers wrote for clarinetist acquaintances of theirs, since both works are very virtuosic. That suggests that both had some guidance from clarinet pros as to what that instrument was capable of and had some assurance that their pieces would get some exposure. Mind you all that is speculation on my part.

     The concert was very well received, here also with shouts of approval and a call for an encore. A really good evening! The pianist was a splendid pianist and friend from way back, Alberto Cruzprieto and the clarinetist was Eleanor Weingartner, my daughter. I much enjoyed listening to them from the first row.