Symphony Rises To Demands Of All-Mozart Program

Spokane Symphony Sunday, Jan. 11, The Met

Maybe it was Mozart. Or perhaps all of us simply took advantage of the opportunity to huddle together on a chilly afternoon in a beautiful place to hear some great music. Whatever, The Met was pretty well packed Sunday for the Spokane Symphony’s all-Mozart program featuring the orchestra’s principal horn, Margaret Wilds.

The top of the stage proscenium on either side was graced with a horn and a bouquet of roses, a nice touch, though I must admit to having had it called to my attention rather than noticing it on my own.

Conductor Fabio Mechetti opened the concert with the Serenade No. 4 in D major (K.203), an eight-movement piece of 18th-century party music, one of those curious mixtures of elegance and agitation only Mozart could make perfect.

Kelly Farris, the orchestra’s concertmaster, played in his usual admirable way in the three concertolike movements Mozart obviously wrote for himself. Farris is ever the consummate professional, not one to get carried away. I would like to see him do something a bit outrageous occasionally simply because I know he can. But one has to be thankful always for Farris’ beautiful steadiness.

Keith Thomas brought grace and humor to the solos Mozart allotted to the oboe in the sixth and seventh movements. The horns and trumpets seemed loud Sunday and inattentively late.

But there was some extraordinarily beautiful horn playing in Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4. This is a very difficult work, taxing every corner of the soloist’s technique and musicianship. Wilds rarely misses (there were a few out-of-focus low notes in the cadenzas written by Wilds herself). Even her held notes are a joy to hear; it’s a bit like hearing Sarah Vaughn or Kristen Flagstad hold a note: Every instant has character. And Wilds’ acrobatic temperament is best exhibited in those passages that jump from high to low and back up.

Mechetti and Wilds’ orchestra colleagues provided her a stylish, sensitive accompaniment. I found the finale, with its combination of coy humor and blatant exuberance, particularly fetching.

Mechetti closed Sunday’s all-Mozart afternoon with the “Haffner” Symphony. If there is a Mozart symphony any closer to Haydn than this, I don’t know about it. There is hardly a moment in the first movement that does not find Mozart referring, Haydn-like, to the motif that opens the movement - tight-knit as a tapestry but just as colorful.

The ensemble was not always dead-on perfect; moments in the andante were downright messy. But orchestra and Mechetti brought a cheeky attitude to the minuet, and they exulted in the high energy of the finale. Playing in The Met with its spotlightlike acoustics puts the players, and the conductor, on their mettle. It is a pleasure to hear this orchestra and this conductor match the challenge.

, DataTimes MEMO: This concert will be repeated tonight at 7:30 at The Met.