Nic on September’s “Robert Levin plays Mozart” Concerts

Here it is, the first of this season’s “Nic Notes,” where our Music Director discusses the upcoming concert in his own words. Enjoy!

“An all-Mozart concert is always a festive way to begin any season but it seems especially apt for our 30th Anniversary. We are so fortunate that we’ll be joined by Robert Levin, the prince of fortepianists. He is not only a superb Mozartian at the keyboard but he is also one of those rare classical musicians who can improvise as the virtuosi of the eighteenth century did.  In the concert, we will hear him play the Piano Concerto K. 466. In addition, he will give the US premiere of a newly found work from Mozart’s childhood.

“At both ends of the evening, we have two orchestral works, one rarely performed and one well known. The Incidental Music to the play Thamos, King of Egypt dates from between 1774 and 1780. Mozart wrote entr’actes (and also choral music) for various revivals of the play in Vienna and Salzburg. The music is serious in character and looks forward to his Masonic compositions and even the Magic Flute. The Jupiter Symphony turned out to be his last. It was written in the late summer of 1788, the third great symphony that he composed in as many months, for what occasion, we do not know. The title is not Mozart’s but it does seem suitable for a work of such lofty grandeur. The contrapuntal complexity of the Finale continues to astonish after over two centuries. One can only imagine how it must have struck the audience at the first performance.”

– Nicholas McGegan