Asbury Park Press previews Mozart concerts
The Asbury Park Press writes:
The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra offers an all-Mozart program at three New Jersey venues next weekend, with the famed “Jupiter” Symphony as its centerpiece.
Guest conductor Perry So will lead the ensemble in performances of the program Friday, March 11, in Princeton; Saturday, March 12, in Red Bank; and Sunday, March 13, in Morristown.
Also on the program will be the 18th-century composer’s Piano Concerto No. 23, with Eric Lu as soloist. The program opens with the Overture and Ballet Music from Mozart’s opera “Idomeneo.”
... [T]he program carries a considerable level of excitement anyway. All the pieces here are examples of Mozart’s late instrumental style and carry subtle and not-so-subtle challenges of execution and interpretation. The concerto alone is worth the price of admission, with its gorgeous slow movement. When played correctly, it is utterly dumbfounding in its beauty.
The “Jupiter” is the last, longest and most complex of the composer’s 41 symphonies. By the time Mozart came to prominence as a composer, the fugue — a very sophisticated combination of melodic parts, based on the type of imitation you hear in a round — was considered out-of-date, eschewed by all the leading young composers of the day, including the child genius.
It wasn’t until he was 26 that he began to seriously investigate the work of J.S. Bach, a composer who died before Mozart was born. The lessons he learned in those studies enriched his musical style tremendously. The “Jupiter” represents the peak of this growth, featuring fugue technique in the finale to rival the grandest achievements of any of the Baroque masters.
And where the “Jupiter” looks back at the styles of the dead masters, “Idomeneo” looks forward, incorporating some passionate tendencies that seem to point the way directly to Beethoven (who was still a child of 11 when that opera premiered).
Perry So is a young conductor, beginning his career in 2008 when he won the Fifth International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He is still making his debut appearances at many leading orchestras around the world this season. In recent years, he debuted with the Cleveland Orchestra, and was a conducting fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Similarly, Lu is young, still a student at Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, even as he is establishing a worldwide career. He won first prize at the U.S. National Chopin Piano Competition in Miami just last year.