Lola Astanova

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Susan Graham

Garrick Ohlsson Photo: Pier Andrea Morolli

Mozart at age 13 1770 portrait by Saverio dalla Rosa  

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San Anonio Symphony: 2016-2017 season

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San Antonio Symphony in the Tobin Center’s  H-E-B Performance Hall

February 14, 2016 For its 2016-17 season, the San Antonio Symphony is planning to do some long-deferred work on its foundation — namely, the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A five-concert Mozart Festival is the centerpiece of the 14-concert classical season, details of which music director Sebastian Lang-Lessing revealed to symphony supporters on Feb. 3 in the Tobin Center lobby.  More on Mozart in a moment, but first, a few other items are worth special mention: • The season opens Sept. 16 and 17 with Carl Orff’s perennially popular Carmina Burana, conducted by Mr. Lang-Lessing. • The closing concert, May 19 and 20, 2017, holds colorful works from and about Iberia (if that term can be expanded to include Portuguese-speaking Brazil) and brings back the guitarist Pablo Villegas as soloist in Joaquín Rodrigo’s Fantasia para un gentilhombre. It also includes Emmanuel Chabrier’s charming, splashy España, selections from Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras, and Claude Debussy’s Iberia. Mr. Lang-Lessing conducts. • Notable soloists include the gigantic (in both musical and physical stature) pianist Garrick Ohlsson, to play the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 under Lang-Lessing on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1; and the great mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, singing Hector Berlioz’s La mort de Cleopatre and a selection of Broadway and French popular songs under Lang-Lessing on May 12 and 13, 2017. • Concertmaster Eric Gratz, who made a splendid impression in Samuel  Barber's Violin Concerto a few weeks ago, next year takes on a tangier work, Bela Bartok’s early Violin Concerto No. 1 — never played or published during the composer’s lifetime, but championed by no less a master than David Oistrakh in the 1960s. Mr. Lang-Lessing conducts that concert, which also holds two vividly colored orchestral works — Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (1947 version) and Aram Khachaturian’s Masquerade Suite, on March 17 and 18, 2017. • Composer and rock star Stewart Copeland, who was represented this season by his Gamelan D’Drum, is the soloist in his The Tyrant’s Crush: Concerto for Trapset and Orchestra, Nov. 4 and 5. “Out of love he comes, not for money,” Mr. Lang-Lessing said. • The season is also notable for intelligent combinations of works. Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony is preceded by excerpts from Wagner’s Parsifal on a melancholic concert conducted by Lang-Lessing on Nov. 18 and 19. (Concertgoers are advised to take their Prozac before leaving home.) Two of the greatest song composers, both associated with Vienna, are paired on the concert of March 31 and April 1: Franz Schubert’s Ave Maria and Unfinished Symphony make a suitably lyrical ramp to Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, conducted by Lang-Lessing. The soprano soloist in Ave Maria and the final movement of the Mahler symphony is Mane Galoyan. • The six-concert pops series includes the return of Cirque de la Symphonie, closing the season June 9-11, 2017. Alamo Heights High School alumnus Christopher Cross returns to his home town for his debut with the orchestra on a non-subscription concert June 3, 2017. Now, about Mozart. The musical form that we call the symphony owes its origin (roughly speaking) to Franz Joseph Haydn, who started composing them before Mozart could say “Papa.” But Mozart (1756-91) wielded greater influence, by far, over the music that came after him. It wasn't because his music was so “perfect” or so “elegant” in its “classicism,” but because it was so disruptive, so daring, so expressive, so individual. The ease with which he navigated classical harmony and expanded its possibilities; the complexity of his counterpoint in, for a supreme example, the finale of the “Jupiter" Symphony; his ability to convey fine nuances of emotion — in all these ways, Mozart’s music was the foundation on which the advances of Romanticism and Modernism were built.  But Mozart has made infrequent appearances on San Antonio Symphony concerts during Mr. Lang-Lessing’s tenure as music director — for good reasons.  First, the Majestic Theater, the symphony’s home before it moved into the Tobin Center in 2014, had a dry , distancing and unflattering acoustic that didn’t serve Mozart well. “A lot of detail gets lost on that stage,” Mr. Lang-Lessing told symphony supporters.  Second, in part because it had played in acoustically mediocre (or worse) venues throughout its history until moving into the Tobin, the San Antonio Symphony has never been a Mozart orchestra. It has never had the opportunity to develop the right sound for Mozart — the right weight, the right warmth, the unity of string ensemble. The big, complicated, virtuosic showpieces by Mahler, Strauss, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich have been a piece of cake for this orchestra. Mozart — not so much. The Tobin Center’s H-E-B Performance Hall changed everything. Not immediately — it took a full season of experimentation to settle on the optimum hall configuration and orchestra seating. When Mr. Lang-Lessing conducted the Mozart Requiem in January of last year, the string sound wasn’t consistently refined. But now, as it is set up for most concerts, the hall is an acoustical marvel — one of the best in the country, with a rich resonance, an excellent bass response and astonishingly vivid projection of the distinctive timbres of the instruments. Mr. Lang-Lessing is betting — and it’s a pretty safe bet — that by next season the orchestra will have fully adjusted to the new digs. So it’s time to give Mozart his due.  The symphony has designated five of next seasons concerts as its Mozart Festival. (Doubtless other local musical organizations will follow suit with a torrent of Mozart’s chamber music during the same time frame.)   • Jan. 6 and 7, 2017: Mozart’s motet Ave verum corpus is the lead-in to Gabriel Fauré’s setting of the Requiem Mass — among the loveliest and most peaceful examples of the form. Then, shifting the mood, comes Mozart’s G Minor Symphony, No. 40, a deeply troubled and agitated work. Mr. Lang-Lessing conducts the orchestra, the Mastersingers chorus and vocal soloists. • Jan. 13 and 14, 2017: Violinist Kolja Blacher, returning for his third appearance with the orchestra, is soloist in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and leads from the concertmaster’s chair in Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 36 and 38.  • Jan. 27 and 28, 2017: Gerard Schwartz, who held long tenures as music director of the Seattle Symphony and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart,  conducts Mozart’s “Posthorn” Serenade, K. 320 — a much more substantial work than the term “serenade” might suggest — and Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2 “Romantic,” plus Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the young Russian-American pianist Lola Astanova. • Feb. 3 and 4: Pianist Jeremy Denk, among the most intelligent of interpreters, is the soloist in the Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 19 in F and 23 in A. He also conducts the concert, which includes Rossini’s Sonata No. 3 in C for strings and Mendelssohn’s Sinfonia for Strings No. 2 in D.  • Feb. 10 and 11: Mr Lang-Lessing conducts Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik and the Symphonies Nos. 39 in E-flat and 41 in C “Jupiter.” There will be one non-subscription special classical concert featuring violinist Gil Shaham with the orchestra under associate conductor Akiko Fujimoto, March 4, 2017.  Mr. Lang-Lessing said the season would include “some of the best-known artists,” but he pointedly added “within the limitations of our budget.” He told me that the budget for next season had been cut by $500,000. According to symphony CEO David Gross, the annual budget for next season stands at about $7.5 million — a pittance for an orchestra of such high performance standards. (The Dallas Symphony’s annual budget is about three times as large; the Houston Symphony’s, about four times as large.) Considerably less than a pittance is the orchestra’s endowment, which Gross estimated at about $1.7 million. Against that financial picture, the orchestra is providing plenty of bang for the buck. Mike Greenberg  

Time to give Mozart his due

Jeremy Denk Photo: Michael Wilson

Sebastian Lang-Lessing Photo: Mike Greenberg