Finney Chapel was practically filled last Saturday for the final concert of this season’s Artist Recital Series. The opening chords of Mozart’s Magic Flute Overture were a joyous introduction for his Requiem which served as the primary work of the evening. After the last couple of more or less romantically inspired Artist Recital concerts, it was refreshing to hear Apollo’s Fire’s baroque interpretation as the Overture’s Allegro took shape.
The ensemble performed on period instruments from the 17th and 18th centuries and played in a finely articulated style. At first they seemed to succeed in bringing out the diverse flow of flourishing chords common in Baroque music. But later the music sounded like a monotonous stream of chords, especially during Mozart’s Piano concerto in D minor, with John Gibbons on the pianoforte. Gibbons performed as Mozart would have, playing the bass line and improvising chords above it during the orchestral tuttis where no piano part is indicated.
But because the dynamics in a pianoforte are several levels lower than on an ordinary grand piano, it was hard to hear Gibbons’ solo parts. As a result, the dynamics of his playing and the nuances of his phrasing were lost.
After this fine but dreary first half of the program, the orchestra perfomed Mozart’s epic, the Requiem. The composer never finished the work, which ends with the Lacrimosa section. Music Director Jeannette Sorell, though, chose a written completion by Apollo’s Fire cellist and composer René Schiffer.
A sacred psalm-tone lingers in the opening of the Introitus and suggests the anguish of Mozart’s music. The choir matches the orchestra fairly well in the major fugue of the Kyrie. The soloists introduced in the Tuba mirum movement gave lackluster performances with an especially unacceptable performance being given by the soprano epitomized by her bad intonation in the trombone section. While the other singers at least made a fair attempt to match the 17th century style, Elizabeth Weigle’s solos stood out as exceptionally tasteless interpretations.
Overall, the performance suffered from a lack of attention to detail. The members of Apollo’s Fire, though competent in their interpretation of Mozart’s religious text, failed to do much more then play in tune. The depth of Mozart’s plea for mercy in his Requiem failed to come across without the nuances of a more historically-focused performance.