As I catch up with events of recent weeks, I just wanted to also follow up on the Mozart 41 performance with Surrey Mozart Players from last week.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d be remiss not to say something about the concert, as it was a memorable evening and I know well that quite a few members of the orchestra read Vftp regularly and I\u2019ve been a bit lax in writing often enough about our collaboration.<\/p>\n
I can imagine the odd sneer of some readers that I\u2019m following a post on Messiah with one on Mozart 41. \u201cHow dull,\u201d they might well moan, \u201cthose pieces are such over-worn affairs. Doesn\u2019t Woods ever want to talk about fresher bits of repertoire?\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, the beauty of a blog versus a column in a\u00a0 paper is that one isn\u2019t working with limited column inches- I\u2019m not forced to choose between writing about this or that. Over time, I can write about this then<\/em><\/strong> that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In fact, I feel strongly that it\u2019s so important not to take our warhorses for granted. Call them mainstays, top-ten hits, but I like to call them gateway pieces. The fact is there are those few pieces whose appeal beyond the everyday offers a gateway to turn the passive classical nibbler who might hear a concert a year into a bona fide fan.<\/p>\n Beyond that, for perhaps millions of listeners, Messiah might be the only major baroque work they ever hear in public. We want them to come away from the piece having had a chance to hear the best of music and the best of musical performance<\/em><\/strong>– if they still don\u2019t like classical music enough to stay with the program, that\u2019s a matter of their taste, not our failings.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t need to remind readers how often a piece like Nutcracker gets done on too little rehearsal by a conductor not quite-up-to-the-job and probably with an orchestra reduced beyond reason. Rather than treating these pieces like cash cows, we ought to treat them like a new car showroom- making them as sparkly and attractive as possible. (Insert joke about then selling them the 1981 K Car here)\u2026.<\/p>\n