Review | Mozart’s Haffner Symphony ‘played with great fire’ by Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra: review
The orchestra, under the baton of Gábor Takács-Nagy, played with great energy, grace and spirit. Also on the programme were pieces by Beethoven, Strauss, Schubert, Rossini and Camille Saint-Saëns
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s much loved “Haffner” Symphony No 35 in D major, “must be played with great fire”, said the young genius to his father Leopold. And fiery indeed were the outer movements presented by the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra under Gábor Takács-Nagy’s baton in this Hong Kong Arts Festival programme.
The opening allegro con spirito was played with joy, energy and a tasteful touch of cheeky rubato. Precision suffered on occasion in the whirlwind presto but the gracefully played andante second movement and the charming third movement menuetto (with an intimate trio of single strings) made for two delightful middle movements.
Local pianist Rachel Cheung Wai-ching followed with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 4 in G Major, a work exploring tension between lyricism and drama and premiered by the composer himself in 1808.
The 26-year-old’s playing in the opening allegro moderato was finely contoured but somewhat direct in sound, leaving one yearning for more variety and contrast in tone colour, while the tutti woodwind struggled to find a solid centre of intonation.
The enigmatic middle movement andante con moto, a dreamy and dramatic dialogue between recitative strings and a softly pleading piano, was well portrayed by Cheung and the orchestra’s string section but lacking somewhat in tension between the dotted rhythms and introverted lyricism.