Leading the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at Symphony Center on Tuesday evening, Mitsuko Uchida gave an underwhelming performance of two piano concertos by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. She first recorded this music with Jeffrey Tate and English Chamber Orchestra in the late 1980s, a few years after she recorded Mozart’s piano sonatas.
While she’s performed and recorded much of the great piano repertoire over the years, Tuesday’s performance showed that little has changed in her approach to Mozart. While it is understandable for her to stick to the classics that made her famous, she needs to find a way to freshen it up somehow.
Sandwiched between the Mozart was Chorale Quartet by German composer Jörg Widmann, who adapted his second string quartet into a work for string orchestra, oboe, flute, bassoon, and celeste. Uchida conducted the Mozart concertos from the piano bench; Concertmaster José Maria Blumenschein led the Widmann from the first violins.
My favorite Mozart piano concerto was played first, Concerto No. 17 in G-major, K. 453. This work is from a time when Mozart expanded his use of winds in his orchestral work. In addition to the usual oboes and horns, he added bassoons and a flute to this concerto and integrated them fully into the sound.
With a small frame, Uchida has a subdued conducting style that brought everything out, although the winds occasionally overpowered, and one of the horns struggled a bit. Throughout she demonstrated her careful touch on the piano keys. When Mozart was intense, she was intense. But Mozart’s music is often at its best when it's delicate, and her playing brought this out well.
One thing that’s clear from Uchida’s recordings is that she tends to be restrained in her tempo selections. This often works, but here, not so much. The finale shows the rambunctious side of Mozart, and a faster performance is called for. This is not what happened on Tuesday night. Even the sped-up coda seemed a bit slow.
The concert’s first half closed with Widmann’s Choral Quartet, a very interesting work based on Franz Josef Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross. Onstage was the Mahler Chamber Orchestra’s strings, which played lots of sound effects, and a celesta, which wasn’t played much at all. Strategically placed in the balcony were an oboe, flute, and bassoon that got a bit more melodic.
Haydn’s work has seven slow adagio movements and a rapid “earthquake” at the close. Widmann’s was a very slow, single movement piece that ended with a quick ascent from the bottom to the top. The performance captured the sound, but the piece was hard to follow.
After intermission, Uchida resumed her place in front of the piano for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major, K.482. I have never especially enjoyed this piece, largely for the reason identified in the program: the main theme of the opening movement is pretty boilerplate. In my humble opinion, the same goes for main theme in the finale. I was hoping that Uchida would bring out something special. While she performed well and composed her own cadenzas, it just did not offer anything new.
Mozart added clarinets, trumpets, and timpani to the score and removed the oboes. He also gave the players many solo opportunities, which made the Mahler Chamber Orchestra shine, whether playing alone or in ensemble with others. The interactions between Uchida and the solo players were quite effective.
For an encore, Uchida stuck to Mozart. She offered a lovely performance of the Andante Cantabile second movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C-major, K.330.
This weekend, Symphony Center hosts the Music of Bach, with CSO Concertmaster Robert Chen and Principal Oboe William Welter teaming up for Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concert for Oboe and Violin. Also on the program is my favorite Bach concerto, Violin Concerto in E-major, in addition to Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and Orchestral Suite No. 1. Bach's son CPE Bach is also on the program, with the Sinfonia in E-flat Major. Tonight, March 28, 7:30, tomorrow, March 29, 1:30, and Tuesday, April 2, 7:30. For more information, click here.