Mozart: Sinfonia, Concerto, Symphony
Julien Chauvin leads Le Concert de la Loge in an album focused on a popular Mozart program. The result is tight, transparent, and ultimately very satisfying.
I came to know the first work on this recording like many in my generation in America through Bugs Bunny cartoons. It sounds so right that it speaks to Mozart’s amazing creative talent. It’s a great opener, at just some four minutes long, and works categorically as an aural appetizer for the remaining two works. Any Mozart collector would of course have recordings of his violin concertos. Among the easiest to listen to, I think, is the one recorded here in G major. While Mozart’s violin concertos are classically constructed with strong melodic material, they seem a world away from Beethoven’s violin concerto, which rightly belongs to the league of the big major concertos in the canon. Mozart’s third was written in 1775, which seems plenty old. But in context, 1775 is only thirty-five years after 1740, a year before Vivaldi’s death. The this time which today we still pack into the baroque period was an interesting one, at least when we take off our historical hats and consider the transition between styles taking place. While it would have still been possible to hear concertos played in the older style, the galant gardens were already blooming.
I say this because I have always thought of Mozart’s concertos in the light of those that came after Vivaldi. Violin concertos not as major orchestral mountains, but rather nicely decorated scenes that allowed the concertmaster of a small chamber ensemble to allow themselves to be heard against the backdrop of their colleagues.
In addition to Chauvin, who leads this disc and also plays violin, the size of the orchestra isn’t small, but it’s not modern either. Eleven violins, four violas, five cellos, and two basses for the strings. Played at low volume with my bookshelf speakers, I’d guess the ensemble was this size, but then again, if the booklet revealed a larger or smaller ensemble, I wouldn’t have quibbled. It sounds large enough, but not grossly large. The ensemble takes on a small sound, for sure, in the middle movement of the concerto, where Chauvin serenely is given focused space above the background accompaniment. This is after hearing his deliciously fresh improvised cadenza, which too often we miss in concertos from this period and before.
I bring size up again in the audition of third movement, which like the overture that opened the piece, reveals a very tight ensemble. The recorded sound is very transparent, which listening via headphones will reveal. It also showcases Chauvin’s dynamic handling of the melody. The recorded sound showcases every musician’s technical skill and at the same time their well-styled interpretations. In fact, I’d go so far to say that Chauvin’s solos exude style. While I have enjoyed several period ensemble’s recordings of the Mozart violin concertos, I can’t speak to any one that showcases quite the level of appropriately restrained flair as this one. If you’re listening for it, it will jump out at you, and it may be best to call this restrained exudation of flair or style as tongue in cheek. If it were humor, it would make you smile, not erupt into laughter. And for Mozart, I think that sounds just about right.
I was called onto tackle the Jupiter symphony in college. As Mozart’s last symphony, you no doubt were going to study it for its historical merits, but I recall taking on the symphony (as well as the one by Haydn that shares a theme) in orchestration class. And finally, I chose the then familiar symphony as a project in my orchestral conducting class. While we have had a number of period ensembles take on Mozart’s symphonies with library recordings (and among them, the Academy of Ancient Music’s with Hogwood seemed the most encyclopedic), I’ve been scooping up more recent recordings as they’ve come, with a number of ensembles taking up to record Mozart’s later set. The Jupiter is of course the big one, and you can get away with a big ensemble performing it. Mozart’s music seems to work that way well, both scaled up or scaled down.
In this recording, the transparency for an orchestral symphony is among the most transparent I’ve ever heard. To my ears, this isn’t a mid-sized chamber ensemble, it has to be as bare-bones as it gets. Now that sounds like a disaster, but here’s the thing: it isn’t barebones in any light. I think the sonics from this sized group is just right, but what’s amazing is how the sound was captured so transparently.
As someone who has stood in front of an orchestra, it doesn’t always sound this good. To get the treat of this sound you literally have to sit in the orchestra. Just on a technical level, the recording would be interesting for what we get to hear. What makes this an outstanding recording is the dynamic contrasts, the perfectly-chosen tempos, and when necessary, the bark of the ensemble in the outer movements. I really cannot pick out any weakness in the recording or the recorded performance.
And that’s why I’d recommend this recording, even if you have three copies of the Jupiter, perhaps several discs of Mozart operas, and modern and period performances of the concertos. If I were a betting man I’d almost guarantee you that the musicians captured here were having fun with this music and the result is extraordinary.
The slow andantes of many classical symphonies are, for me, often too long and uninteresting. One of the more evil thoughts I’ve had is that composers wrote these for the benefit of those who required a power nap. Or better, an excuse to leave the theater to procure a snack. Yes, I’d say that both of Mozart and Papa Haydn. I’m a heretic, perhaps, or, if I’m trying to be a smart ass, what I’m saying is that too many contemporary ensembles don’t know how to engage us with this music. Or me, to be the most accurate. The second movement of the Jupiter for me in this recording would probably keep me in the theater, hanging on to the shape of the melody. In Mozart’s writing it is hard to not see the humor. I’d likely make more of that, but then again, that’s the type of musician I am. I’d have the horns stand in the 40th symphony during the first movement’s development. Under Chauvin’s leadership, however, he makes real music with the andante, while never uttering anything gross with Mozart’s jocund writing.
The nuance to Chauvin’s solo playing from the concerto comes out in the violins during the minuet. Every orchestra could study how this is done. Once you hear it you might consider the difference between a plainly dressed woman compared to one wearing opulent jewels, a richly patterned scarf, and clothes so well-fitting you’d consider them custom-tailored. (If the image of a well-dressed man is more your thing, the analogy is equally apt.) Which, moving linearly, is all but a setup for the symphony’s finale.
It is difficult for me not to get excited by the finale to the Jupiter. It all stems from a lecture in theory class about the contrapuntal construction of the piece. A story, I recall, about Mozart’s fascination with counterpoint after discovering Bach. It’s exactly the type of mind game that would interest a still young musical genius. I’m poisoned, of course, by the image of Mozart from the film Amadeus, but I can’t escape the thought of Mozart finding the puzzle-tight way his themes fit together in the very end as a type of inside joke to his musical friends and family. It’s almost trivial to treat counterpoint this way, in contrast to Beethoven’s own solutions in his last piano sonatas and string quartets as serious enterprises.
I won’t say anymore. I treated myself to the last movement with an excellent audition with my best headphones and a rather transparent headphone amplifier. I was left in tears in want of nothing more.
Clearly one of the finest discs of classical repertoire this year.
