Sir Roger Stars in Mozart

Sir Roger Norrington

That devil vibrato.
   Guest conductor Sir Roger Norrington excised it from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s  all-Mozart program Friday morning at Music Hall.
    Heard on the concert, which drew a sizable audience considering the ice, snow and plummeting temperatures, were:  the  Symphony No. 33 in B-flat Major, K.319; Symphony No. 36 in C Major, K.425 (“Linz”); Masonic Funeral Music, K.479a; and Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat Major, K.495.   Featured artist in the Horn Concerto was principal French hornist Elizabeth Freimuth in her CSO solo debut.

Elizabeth Freimuth

The no-vibrato stricture did not affect Freimuth since French horns do not use vibrato.  But it gave the strings a more genuinely “classical” sound -- pure, refined and well-calibrated to meet Mozart’s Apollonian ideal.  (Continuous string vibrato is the custom today and it takes a conscious effort to withhold it.)
   The concert, Norrington’s second with the CSO (his guest conducting debut was in 2006), was a fine illustration of the page he currently occupies in his 30-year advocacy of authentic performance practice.  In an “Opera Rap” Thursday evening at Music Hall (Norrington will conduct Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” for Cincinnati Opera in June), he explained that after experimenting with original instruments and researching how musicians played them and composers utilized them, he is applying what he has learned to the modern symphony orchestra.  Today’s instruments, he said, differ from those in Mozart’s time by only 15 percent or so.
     The CSO musicians caught on fast, Norrington added.  That despite having only two rehearsals to prepare for the concert due to Wednesday’s snow emergency, when driving within city limits was declared illegal.  Hardly a finger could be seen vibrating on the string, tempos were on the brisk side and accents and phrasing were pointed for maximum delineation and projection.
   Aside from the modern instruments, the only anachronism on the stage was Norrington himself, since the pre-eminent role of the conductor, for the most part just a time-beater in Mozart’s time (even a keyboardist or member of the orchestra), had not yet taken hold.  Norrington, even without a podium or a baton, was still the star, and he played as much to the audience as the musicians.  At nearly 75, his accomplishments and reputation are secure and he can do it.  The audience loved his expressive gestures, his sideways glances and the way he turned completely around to face them at the end of the concert, his arms opened wide.
   Freimuth, CSO principal since 2006, projected plenty of star power of her own in the Mozart Concerto.  Clad in fire engine red, her horn gleaming in the light, she filled the hall with musical sunshine, nailing high notes and executing runs with arresting ease.  The second movement Romanza was a lovely serenade, the peppy, hunting horn finale, a well-stated, engaging conclusion.  Attending to the horn’s necessary “plumbing” between movements gave her listeners an amusing close up of the intricacies of the French horn (moisture naturally condenses inside and must be emptied periodically).
   An extraordinary moment turned into two when Norrington asked the audience if he could repeat the Masonic Funeral Music (not heard on CSO concerts since 1965).
   “”I can’t bear not to hear it again,” he said.  “Can you imagine being the widow?  How many hankies you would go through?”
    Composed for the funeral of two of Mozart’s fellow Freemasons, the six-minute work features basset horns (a lower-pitched relative of the clarinet) and a contrabassoon, plus strings, oboes and horns.  That plus the minor key and use of plainchant give it a dark, sorrowful sound which swells at the end into a halo-like, C- major chord.
   It was the same key as the “Linz” Symphony, which framed the concert along with the opening Symphony No. 33.  Both symphonies showcased Norrington’s neo-authentic approach by utilizing small ensembles (35 players in No. 33, 41 in No. 36), with the first and second violins facing each other.  No. 33, by Jupiter, has a first movement theme similar to that of Mozart’s last Symphony (No. 41, the “Jupiter”).  Noticeably lovely here was the silken, vibrato-less sheen of the violins on their long down bows in the second movement.   
   The “Linz” Symphony (named for a lovely Austrian town on the Danube near Salzburg) received a lively, character-filled performance, though one wondered how much more enjoyable it – and the entire concert -- would have been in a smaller hall.  The second movement evoked a gentle waltz, full of melody punctuated at one point by a little fillip (a kind of wink of the eye) by the oboes.  As in Symphony No. 33, the charming Trio of the Menuetto movement featured the woodwinds and a quartet of principal strings (Owen Lee on bass) where lack of vibrato was clearly noticeable, but not missed.  The Presto finale was just that, with cascades of runs and Norrington’s exuberant salute at the end.
   Repeat is 8 p.m. Saturday at Music Hall.