Chamber Orchestra: Mozart and controversy

It’s a lament I’ve heard ever since I first started writing about music almost 30 years ago: What will happen when all these graying ladies and bald men die? Who will replace them?

The Chamber Orchestra’s executive director, Peter H. Gistelinck, who was moderating the discussion, fielded the question. The Chamber Orchestra, he said, caters to a specific age group. According to the orchestra’s studies, he said, the average age of the audience remains constant.

Most people don’t start attending concerts, he added, until they reach their late 30s. Until then, they’re too busy establishing their careers and raising families.

They do listen to recordings, Gistelinck said, even if they don’t attend concerts. The Chamber Orchestra has racked up 76,000 paid downloads and streaming views, spread over some 50 online offerings.

To-do list

Gistelinck’s answer correlates with my own experience. My wife and I subscribed to the Philadelphia Orchestra shortly after we were married, but we didn’t start exploring chamber music and early music concerts until our 15th wedding anniversary. Instead, we bought recordings and filled a cedar chest with a collection dominated by both those categories.

That’s not to say that we music lovers can relax our efforts to build audiences. Music education should be supported. Students should be offered irresistible discounts. Music organizations should continue to offer post-concert receptions where their listeners can mingle with like-minded souls. But we’re not faced with a hopeless situation. There’s a difference between a steady state and impending oblivion.

Potshots at Mozart

The other controversy at Sunday’s concert centered on Mozart’s development as a composer. This is a favorite subject of Bernard Jacobson, who writes the Chamber Orchestra program notes. Jacobson argues that Mozart’s immortality rests on the second half of his enormous output. Mozart was a prodigy, yes; but he wouldn’t be remembered today, Jacobson feels, if he’d died ten years earlier.

The Chamber Orchestra opened this all-Mozart program with an early Mozart symphony, No. 17 (composed when Mozart was 16!), and concluded with his next to last, No. 40. Jacobson’s notes quote the writer Hans Keller, who opined that Mozart’s early works display talent, but not genius.

Mozart’s 17th, in Jacobson’s view, is an enjoyable craftsmanlike work and a remarkable achievement for a 16-year-old composer. But the 40th is a passionate masterpiece that expresses mature feelings, like an adult’s acceptance of destiny.

A boy having fun

When a listener asked afterward about Jacobson’s distinction between talent and genius, guest conductor Matthias Bamert downplayed the idea. “Who decides these things?” Bamert asked.

I think Jacobson has a point, but my personal take on the two symphonies is a bit different. When I listened to No. 17, I felt I was watching a boy having fun with a construction set. I could hear the thoughts running through the boy’s head. “Hey, now I can have the horns jump in! What will it sound like if I make the strings drop to a whisper while they twitter and then pop up for a moment? And what can I do with the cellos?”

When I listened to No. 40, on the other hand, I heard the conflicts and indecisions of a personality dealing with the problems of early adulthood. Mozart was approaching the end of his life, as Jacobson points out, but he was still only 32 — a relatively young age even by 18th-century standards. He was in the prime of life, supporting a young family and coping with all the financial concerns and professional relationships that beset young careerists. He didn’t know he was going to die in three years.

Khaner’s reply

The soloist for the concert, Philadelphia Orchestra principal flute Jeffrey Khaner, refrained from commenting on both controversies, but he raised a third issue when he defended Mozart against the accusation that he hated the flute. That notion rests on a single comment in a letter. Mozart’s flute music is so well written, Khaner argued, that it couldn’t have been created by someone who hated the instrument.

Khaner had already proved his point during the concert, when he played Mozart’s Second Flute Concerto. Arguing about the arts may be fun, but the practitioners always seem to get the last word.