Back to Basics

Mostly Mozart Festival music director Louis Langree has done a remarkable job altering the talent and morale of his orchestra.With each passing concert, it's becoming harder to remember that only three years ago the band was at an all-time low.

Friday's program of Haydn, Schumann, and Mozart was so finely etched it outshone Dutch cello star Pieter Wispelwey, who himself was fresh off a remarkable week performing the complete Bach cello suites.Friday's concert wasn't about the soloist or the showpiece he brought with him. Rather, it was about the classical symphonies that framed his performance.

Mr. Langree's rendition of one of Haydn's most brooding and forwardthinking symphonies - the E-minor "Trauersinfonie," No. 44 - was as honestly theatrical as an opera. The work opens with a four-note motive that often is interpreted strongly and conservatively with equally declamatory weight dispersed throughout. Instead, Mr. Langree inveigled the phrase with texture and rhythm toward the third, highest note only to back off the last note with grace and immediacy.

With considerable experience in Europe's authentic-instruments scene, Mr. Langree enjoys introducing aspects of early performance practice into his interpretations. In this case those qualities merged with Romanticized details: blistering runs, sustained intensity on long notes, unabashed tone-painting. In the middle of the second movement Menuetto, he introduced a cascade of musical descents, in the form of violins playing thirds as a high, finely sung horn solo became an angelic soprano in love.

The dancerly third movement, Ada gio, didn't plod but rather breathed. I was impressed with Mr. Langree's interest in emphasizing a second violin accompaniment - a series of minorkey triplets. Excitement colored the rough and tumble off-string attacks of the relentlessly accented fourth movement; Mr. Langree had given artistic voice to portions of the score that usually sneak by unnoticed.

Mr.Wispelwey,also known for his period-style performances, plays a good deal of Romantic and contemporary work on his modern cello. He didn't, however, play particularly well in Schumann's late A-minor Cello Concerto. Nor, frankly, is the piece worth an audience's time: Cellists play it both because their concerto repertoire doesn't have enough great works in it, and because it was written by an important composer. But its formal weaknesses, mercurial ramblings (the composer was suffering from mental illness and aural hallucinations), and lack of an engaging tune are shown up in a large concert hall.

Mr. Wispelwey also didn't prove to be a significant solo presence sitting in front of a great orchestra. His bass notes were marked by wobbly vibrato; jumps up the fingerboard created idiosyncratic yelps - such playing was clearly crafted for this performance.

Mr. Langree's evocation of Mozart's iconic 40th Symphony in G minor was inspired and novel while retaining impressive early-music sheen. Mr. Langree approached phrases impressionistically, invoking sophisticated musical chiaroscuro throughout.The rising tension of the piece seemed impossible to break, and in the last, propulsive movement the turbulence only increased in degrees of velocity and madness.

This work is one of my favorites, but it is performed far too often. But I left the hall Friday night even more enamored of it than I already am. Bravo to Mr. Langree for continuing to make us hear our favorites as if for the first time.