"Viennese Classics" - the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra performs works of Mozart and Beethoven on instruments of the Classical period. Conductor: David Shemer. Soloists: Tom Ben Ishai, Yaron Rosenthal

Tom Ben Ishai (Uri Elkayam)

 

Yaron Rosenthal (jamd.ac.il)

Concert No.3 of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra's 33rd season marked a new and decidedly exciting shift for the ensemble. Introducing "Viennese Classics", JBO founder and artistic director Prof. David Shemer informed the sizable audience gathered at the Jerusalem International YMCA on January 9th 2022 that the Mozart/Beethoven program would be performed on instruments typical to the Classical period - authentic woodwinds and brass, with string players using Classical bows. Indeed, the keyboard instrument for the evening would be a fortepiano. Conducting the concert was David Shemer, with soloists Yaron Rosenthal-fortepiano and soprano Tom Ben Ishai.

 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed the Divertimento in D major K. 136 for strings in Salzburg in the winter of 1772. Busy working on "Lucio Silla", a new, ambitious opera to be premiered in Milan, writing the Divertimento, K. 136 must have served as a means of releasing surplus energy for the 16-year-old composer. From the very first sounds of the vibrant opening Allegro, the JBO string players' genial, velvety timbres and minimal use of vibrato transported the listener into the ambience of a musical soirée taking place in the drawing room of one of Salzburg's leading residents, venues at which Mozart frequently performed on both keyboard and violin. The Baroque Orchestra's precise, unmannered playing allowed for the work's shape, charm, its effervescence and subtle surprises to surface, the warm, elegant Andante movement followed by the spirited Presto finale, bringing the Divertimento, a fine example of  an ambitious work in a genre traditionally designated as "light" music, to a close.

 

Concerts in Mozart’s day always included a vocal element. His concert arias were occasional works to be inserted into his own operas, those of other composers, or simply composed for singers who possessed voices he particularly admired. In the latter case, they were tailored to the range, ability, tonal- and dramatic qualities of those singers. The concert arias are small, dramatic set pieces which, almost invariably, borrow their words from full-length opera libretti. Taking its text from "Ezio", "Misera! dove son…Ah! non son io" K.369 (Ah! It is not I who speak) was composed in 1871 for Countess Josepha von Paumgarten, a 19-year-old amateur singer. Young Israeli-born opera singer Tom Ben Ishai issued in the recitative with restraint, its course becoming somewhat more agitated as it. progressed. In the aria proper, offering brief ornamental flourishes and dynamic changes, Ben Ishai's beauty of tone coloured sustained notes as she engaged easefully in its wide intervals and dramatic leaps, portraying the character’s frenzied mental state. And how lush the instrumental canvas sounded, scored for two violins, two violas, basso, two flutes and two horns. 

 

Another concert aria "Ch'io mi scordi di te? Non temer, amato bene" K.505 (Should I forget you? Fear nothing, my beloved) is unconventional in that it was written for the combination of solo voice, piano obbligato and orchestra. Mozart composed it in 1786 for English soprano Nancy Storace, who had sung the role of Susanna at the premiere of "The Marriage of Figaro''.  He created the complementary piano part, a farewell to Storace, for the concert aria which he and Storace performed together in early 1787, shortly before her departure from Vienna.  A work bearing a clearly strong personal element, the piece -  a unique sort of duo concertante, the only one of its type in Mozart’s oeuvre -  is the melding of an opera aria and piano concerto. (In Mozart's own thematic catalogue, it is labelled "Für M'selle Storace und mich," which might indicate a sympathy between them that went beyond art! ) Lush in its instrumental scoring for 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and strings, with solo piano, the ambience is one of warmth and tenderness, well reflected in Ben Ishai's musical and well-shaped rendering of the piece, music indeed sympathetic, with plenty of give and take between singer and fortepiano (Yaron Rosenthal). The sound of the handsome fortepiano (Chris Maene, Ruiselede, Belgium), not built for the likes of the large concert hall, however, emerged as well-defined, its mellifluous timbre intimate and beguiling, adding its unique colours to the orchestral web. Mozart never saw Nancy again; yet he regularly wrote her letters, which regrettably have been lost.

 

And, to an auspicious occurrence in the history of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra - the ensemble's first performance of a work of Ludwig van Beethoven and one to challenge the concepts long ingrained in the minds of concert-goers. Listening to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.1 in C major Op.15 at this concert, the listener was obliged to put aside the pompous sound world of the large symphony orchestra and the modern Steinway grand. We meet the 29-year-old Beethoven juxtaposing the inherited styles of his predecessors and Classical models with his own musical ideas, forms and taste, a Beethoven not yet beset by the crisis that would be brought about by his gradual loss of hearing. Maestro Shemer offers us the opportunity to embrace the leaner proportions of the historic Classical chamber orchestra, with the JBO instrumentalists' lightness and transparency setting off the robust but mellow brass instruments and silvery sounds of the fortepiano. In fact, once the ear had adjusted, the wealth of details emerging from orchestra and keyboard was rewarding, to say the least, with orchestra and soloist sustaining a balance that was precise and unfaltering. Rosenthal was clearly on home territory, with playing that was delicate, richly coloured, hearty, agile and tastefully flexed. It was all enjoyment on his part and ours and an elevating experience to hear the work in the more personal proportions with which the composer would have been familiar. Totally magical!

 

Prof. Yaron Rosenthal is a leading Israeli pianist, combining an international career as a soloist and chamber musician. He is the pianist of the acclaimed Jerusalem Trio and a senior faculty member at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. A graduate of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and the Israeli Opera's Meitar Studio, Tom Ben has won several awards. Launching a solo career, she is also a member of the Cecilia Ensemble and the Israeli Vocal Ensemble