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A delicate balance

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February 11, 2017 Any performance of Wolfgang  Amadeus Mozart’s music is a balancing  act. How much should a performance  reproduce the sound world of the late  18th century, and how much should it  reflect our own time? Given the nearly  sacred stature of Mozart in the Western musical tradition, does the performer  owe obsequious reverence tothe scores,  or is the composer honored more by the application of fresh eyes and ears?  The San Antonio Symphony and music  director Sebastian Lang-Lessing struck  an ideal balance in their accounts of  two late symphonies by Mozart — No.  39 in E-flat and No. 41 in C (“Jupiter”),  the major works on the last of the  orchestra’s five Mozart Festival  programs, Feb.10 in the Tobin Center.  The concert opened with Mozart’s  Serenade No. 13 in G for strings,  generally known as Eine kleine  Nachtmusik. Ensemble was a little loose throughout the serenade, perhaps because Mr. Lang-Lessing had the musicians (except for the cellos) play standing, as would have been the practice in Mozart’s time. Then, too, Mozart intended this music for only eight players, and a much smaller and less-resonant space; with 29 players in the 3-second resonance of the H-E-B Performance Hall, the sound was unavoidably on the heavy side. (Deploying the hall’s sound-absorbing curtains might have helped.) But the performance was stylish in other ways – the excellent non-vibrato sound, the strong, rustic rhythms of the minuet.   Both of the symphonies were given superb performances. The sound in No. 39 was lithe, transparent and homogeneous, with an excellent balance between strings (34 of them) and winds. Ensemble precision was exemplary. The orchestra’s full complement of 41 strings showed up for the “Jupiter” Symphony, producing the more-substantial sound that this music requires without compromising precision.   As throughout the Mozart Festival, principal timpani Peter Flamm was playing period instruments, with calf-skin heads producing a lean sound that blended perfectly with the larger texture. The two horns (Colin Bianchi and Peter Rubins) were playing modern valved instruments, but Mr. Lang-Lessing asked them to stop notes that would have been stopped on natural horns, so the result was something approaching an 18th-century sound.  Mr. Lang-Lessing didn't try to reinvent the wheel, interpretively, but he did contribute trenchant punctuation at strategic moments — a dramatic ritard in the trio of the “Jupiter” menuetto was especially pleasing — and there were many moments that seemed to gain a theatrical edge from his experience as an opera conductor.   The apex of the concert was the moody, agitated, mysterious second movement (andante cantabile) of “Jupiter,”  meticulously shaped and balanced, with voicings that emphasized the shifting harmonies and complex emotions. But the performances of both symphonies were altogether true to Mozart’s time, and to our own. One couldn't ask for more.  Mike Greenberg  

San Antonio Symphony, Sebastian Lang-Lessing

Sebastian Lang-Lessing