SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Mozart, Schnittke, Copland, and Haydn: Michael Francis (conductor), Jon Manasse (clarinet), Seattle Symphony, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 28.10.2010 (BJ)

 This was a concert that deserved many more listeners than bothered to show up for it. The young English conductor Michael Francis, who also plays double bass in the London Symphony Orchestra, made an impressive US debut with a cleverly designed program in the “Mainly Mozart” series.

 The cleverness lay in the way the two halves ended with parallel versions of “farewell.” The Haydn symphony well-known by that title was the final work. But before intermission Francis gave us the 20th-century Russian composer Alfred Schnittke’s Moz-Art à la Haydn, which plays a Haydnesque disappearing trick on some obscure bits of Mozart.

 The conductor is on record acknowledging an enthusiasm for Schnittke that I have to say I do not share. The annotator for Gidon Kremer’s recording of this work with his Kremerata Baltica observed that “The Mozart fragments are put through the compositional equivalent of a food processor,” achieving “a carnivalesque spirit similar to the intent of the Mozart original.” What I hear instead is a demonstration that, if you take the most coherent of composers and mess his ideas up thoroughly enough, you can produce total incoherence. Still, witnessing the piece live, with Emma McGrath and Elisa Barston playing the solo violin parts up a storm, and bringing the proceedings to a close as their colleagues stole offstage and the lights went down, was more fun than just hearing it in a recording. (And the virtuosity of the crew in re-setting the stage for it won a rare but deserved burst of applause.)

 The other non-classical work on the program was Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto. It’s not one of his strongest works. Standing towards the more populist end of his stylistic spectrum, it nevertheless lacks the sheer tunefulness that makes such works as Rodeo and Appalachian Spring irresistible. But some dazzling playing from the soloist, Jon Manasse, made a strong case for it.

 Francis partnered him deftly. But it was in Mozart’s 33rd Symphony at the beginning of the evening and Haydn’s 45th at the end that conductor and orchestra had, and used, their best opportunities to shine.

 Francis set lively tempos. Impressive was the way he heightened the contrasts between stormy and lyrical in the first movement of the Haydn, and his graceful and often eloquent baton technique invested the minuet of the work with positively tigerish zest. In the trio of that movement the horn and oboe sections led by John Cerminaro and Ben Hausmann played their comfortingly smooth lines with elegance and warmth. In both symphonies the strings, in keeping with classical style, moderated their vibrato to excellent effect. And the ending, designed to persuade Haydn’s prince to let his musicians go home, was a genuinely touching farewell, with McGrath and Barston left once again in possession, and the other players and conductor trooping off to leave the stage once again dark.

 Bernard Jacobson

 

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