Mao Fujita plays Mozart part 1
Royal Festival Hall, 02 March 2025
It is a privilege to hear such an assured performance of Mozart’s final piano concerto (no 27 K595), probably written just months before the composer’s death in 1791.
Mao Fujita, still only 25, has an exceptionally sensitive technique and took a delicate approach to the first movement especially in the expansive cadenza. He then gave us an expressive larghetto with lots of nicely done musical dialogue especially from the cellos who were seated next to first violins, with double basses immediately behind them for this concert. The allegro came with an unusual, charismatic blend of intensity and insouciance particularly in the passages where the piano is counterpointed with the wind and in the impressive cadenza which I’ve rarely heard played with quite so much rubato.
With Giedre Slekyte on the podium for her first concert with the Philharmonia the afternoon began with Kodaly’s Dances of Galanta and ended with Brahms’s Symphony No I both of which require larger forces and neither of which was quite as successful as the Mozart.
She has a bold conducting technique using lots of circular left hand movement and wide armed gestures as well as signalling with her fingers. The start of the Kodaly – which is not an obvious concert opener anyway – was awkward and although it soon settled with lovely string sound in the Andante maestoso and lots of gypsy excitement, the tempo changes and the joins between dances were not always seamless.
Slekyte – expansive conducting and plenty of colour – leaned heavily on the dynamics in the first movement of the Brahms which packed it with more tension than it often gets but the tempo change was ragged. The beautiful oboe melody (Timothy Rundle in fine form) in the Andante was neatly controlled and movingly picked up by Philharmonia leader, Zolt-Tihamer Visontay who, incidentally, seemed to be even more alert than usual in this concert. The orchestra was playing together very well by the Adagio which got a poised opening, incisive horn and flute solos along with plenty of Brahmsian grandiosity with some pleasingly judged contrasts.
I had an unusual experience at this concert in that I took with me, as my plus one, a septuagenarian friend who had never before been to an orchestral concert and knew none of this music. She enjoyed it a lot and that means that the performance was a great success in every way that matters, a few flaws notwithstanding. It is essential, given the parlous state of classical music in this country, that we attract and please new audiences and, QED, it can be done without dumbing down.
