Mozart’s Jupiter: Musical foothills and a mighty mountain

Reviewed by Peter Simpson

Mozart’s Jupiter

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra

Auckland Town Hall

May 1

Reviewed by Peter Simpson

Thursday’s Mayday concert by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra consisted of some pleasant foothills leading to a mighty mountain. The foothills were all acts of homage by different composers to a major predecessor: Tchaikovsky honouring Mozart; Australian composer Elena Kats-Cherwin (born 1957) honouring Bach, and British composer George Benjamin (born 1960) honouring Purcell. The mighty mountain was Mozart’s sublime ‘Jupiter Symphony’, No. 41.

The conductor, Leo Hussain (born 1978), is British and is currently Principal Guest Conductor of the George Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest; he also worked with Simon Rattle at the Berlin Philharmonic and is probably He is best known as a conductor of opera. In Auckland he began the concert informally with a brief verbal introduction emphasising the linking theme of homage and describing the Mozart symphony as the summation not only of Mozart’s career but of the whole Classical period in music. His control of the orchestra was impeccable throughout and the whole concert was warmly received.

Tchaikovsky’s ‘Mozartiana’, dating from 1887, orchestrated what the composer called ‘gems of musical art, unpretentious in form, but containing incomparable beauties’. The first three movements are tasty miniatures; the final movement, a set of variations, based on Mozart after a theme by Gluck, is more extensive and includes some effects a million miles from Mozart; the variations fully explore the large orchestra’s resources, one being entirely for strings, another entirely for woodwind, and including solo turns by clarinet, flute, violin and glockenspiel. The performance was spirited.

Elena Kats-Chernin describes her six-part work as ‘Re-inventions (after Bach)’; they are based on some of the great composer’s inventions for keyboard. Scored for small string orchestra and solo recorders the performance featured entertaining solos on four different recorders (discount, tenor, bass, sopranino) by Australian virtuoso Genevieve Lacey who impressed the audience (especially in her bird-song imitation encore) with her skill and vivacity.

Composer George Benjamin was a pupil of Messiaen; his ‘Three Consorts’ responds particularly to the ‘mesmerising intersection of line and harmony’ in Henry Purcell’s 1680 Fantasias. The middle piece was especially sonorous and pleasing.

Mozart’s Jupiter symphony is an astonishing work which the composer himself probably never heard performed; it certainly owes its name to somebody else. One scholar described it as ‘the greatest orchestral work of the world which preceded the French Revolution’ and the APO played the work as if they agreed with that dizzy estimation. The way the symphony combines both clarity and complexity, especially in the last movement, was apparent throughout the orchestra’s sparkling rendition. Glorious music!