<<<
Back to News
The
Guardian / January 2011 ****
Erica Jeal
Mozart,
Mozart everywhere. Midway through Radio 3?s 12-day marathon, the station again
teamed up with Kings Place, where the year-long Mozart Unwrapped festival is just
getting going. And if the live broadcast offered Mozart in your living room, that's
not so far from what the live experience was like; a chamber orchestra of modern
instruments playing in a hall of such acoustic warmth makes for very up-close,
loud listening.
Perhaps
Colin Davis's veteran hands might have held the Aurora Orchestra back, conjuring
quieter pianissimos to set the ebullient fortes in relief; but Davis was ill,
and so Nicholas Collon stepped in to conduct the ensemble he founded six years
ago. Under Collon, the playing was vividly exuberant, yet still thoughtful and
stylish. The average age of the orchestra can't be a day over 30, and the musicians
play as if they have something to prove. The opening bars of the overture to La
Clemenza di Tito bristled with intent. The Linz Symphony, No 36, opened very differently,
with the strings holding back the vibrato and with Collon's fluid beat fostering
a sense of mystery; but the finale, thick with horn and trumpet, was jubilant.
In
between were two arias and a concerto. Fflur Wyn charmed all comers with Nehmt
Meinen Dank, but this relatively simple number must have been a breeze after Vorrei
Spiegarvi, oh Dio!, which began as a silky duet with Thomas Barber's solo oboe,
before turning into a cartwheeling showpiece that took her silvery soprano sky-high.
BACK
TO TOP
