"Mozart & the Piano" - Paul Lewis (UK) performs two piano concertos with the Israel Camerata Jerusalem. Conductor: Avner Biron

Pianist Paul Lewis © Kaupo Kikkas

At this time in history, the concert world is overrun with last-minute changes due to the corona pandemic. With American pianist/musicologist Robert Levin unable to appear with the Israel Camerata Jerusalem, British pianist Paul Lewis, whose Italian concert tour was cancelled, promptly stepped in to solo in "Mozart & the Piano", Concert No.5 of the orchestra's Instru-Vocal Series. The result was an unforgettable event! This was Lewis' first performance with the Camerata. Conducting was Avner Biron, the orchestra's founder and music director. This writer attended the event in the Henry Crown Hall of the Jerusalem Theatre on February 22nd, 2022.

The evening's Mozart theme set out with Israeli composer/pianist/educationalist Ron Weidberg's "Variations on a Theme by Mozart '', a work that originated as a quartet, but that has since undergone several arrangements, with extra sections added. Weidberg starts out by basing the piece on the well-known first movement of Mozart's Sonata for piano in A major K.331, the subject used by Mozart himself (and Max Reger) for variations. Weidberg's piece displays fine contrapuntal writing, but no less pleasing is the rich, streamlined variety of his orchestration. Some sections employ dissonance, (none, however, actually being atonal in concept) others sounding completely tonal and in the richly-coloured hues of the Romantic style. Weidberg guides the listener through the mindset of each variation, whether lyrical, tranquil, naive, whimsical or even outright boisterous, with a jazzy touch  here and there, as the melodic subject tends to become illusive in some movements. Suavely flowing and tender, the fifth (minore) variation abounds in poignant songfulness, replete with lovely woodwind utterances. Altogether, the composer engages the woodwinds amply throughout. As the piece signs out with the Finale's wonderfully flowing and articulately voiced triple-subject fugue, I am left with the impression that Weidberg's "Variations on a Theme by Mozart" is a splendid concert piece, indeed, a fine vehicle for the skilled players of the Camerata.  Born in Tel Aviv, Dr. Ron Weidberg has written much vocal music, including five operas. His instrumental oeuvre includes symphonies, piano- and violin concertos, chamber music and many works for piano.

Remaining in the same tonality, we heard Paul Lewis in Mozart's Piano Concerto No.12 in A major, K.414. With Mozart addressing the key of A major as lyrical and serene, this graceful, flowing work, composed on Mozart's move to Vienna (and to be performed by him), where he was launching his freelance career, fits the concept. Lewis enlists his fresh, lively and flexible touch and rich palette of textures (luxuriant playing but never muscular), to convey the many sides of the composer's personality and his music - Mozart's good-naturedness and joie-de-vivre in the outer movements, a sense of well-being, playfulness (as invited by development sections) and, here and there, a touch of mischief. Introduced In velvet-like hues by the orchestra, Lewis takes the audience with him into his personal, fine-spun reading of the Adagio movement, offering committed musical meaning to each gesture and phrase, with a sprinkling of small, suspenseful comments as the first section searches to find its way back in, following  the subtly darkened clouds of the middle section, with the concerto topped off by Mozart's own mirthful cadenza. 

Mozart's B flat Concerto K.595, completed in Vienna in 1791 (he had set it aside after working on it in 1788), is the composer's final piano concerto and the last work to be performed by him in public. Yet, despite the fact that 1791 was a dire year for Mozart, with his waning fame, financial problems, his wife ill and his own depression, the work is lyrical, poised and subdued rather than bitter. Lewis weaves the piano role through the work with musical intelligence and poesy, serenity and reflective grace, commenting and conversing with the orchestra in an assemblage of touching utterances (some diminutive), with both brilliance of playing and sotto voce fragility, threading the cadenzas into the musical fabric with a natural sense of sequence. Like-minded in approach, Maestro Biron and Paul Lewis produce Mozart at both his most thrilling and his subtlest: his genius, explicit humanity and music meet on the concert stage, with echoes of his opera writing never very far away.

Paul Lewis sent the audience off home with Franz Schubert's bittersweet Allegretto in C minor D.915, a small jewel of a work, rendered with tenderness, fervency and crystalline shaping.

Born (1972) in Liverpool, England, Paul Lewis, regarded as one of the leading pianists of his generation, has performed as a soloist and with world-class ensembles across Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. He is best known for his interpretations of Beethoven's 32 sonatas and piano concertos. performances of Mozart, Liszt and Schubert, including piano accompaniments of the latter's song cycles.