Allegro celebrating Mozart’s birthday

Cities all over the world will be staging celebrations on Friday of the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birth in Salzburg, Austria.

Not to be outdone, Spokane’s Allegro: Baroque and Beyond series will observe the occasion with a concert and some cake.

Allegro co-director David Dutton has planned a program that shows some unusual facets of the composer he calls “the most gifted natural musician of all time.”

Friday’s concert will feature sections of Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni” along with some duets Mozart wrote for two horns.

In addition to the works by Mozart, the program also includes Carl Reinecke’s Trio for Oboe, Horn and Piano and C.M. Loeffler’s Two Rhapsodies for Oboe, Viola and Piano.

Joining Dutton for this concert will be pianist Jody Graves, violist J. Melvin Butler and French horn player Margaret Wilds.

Graves is on the faculty at Eastern Washington University and is a member of the Sapphire Trio.

Butler, organist-choirmaster at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle and a member of the faculty at the University of Washington, formerly played viola in the Rochester (N.Y.) Philharmonic.

Wilds, a former principal horn of the Spokane Symphony, is a freelance musician in several West Coast ensembles.

“The excerpts we will perform from ‘Don Giovanni’ are premieres in a way,” Dutton says.

“In the 19th century, Georges Bizet, the composer of ‘Carmen,’ made a complete arrangement of Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ for solo piano. Copies of this arrangement have laid unknown in two European libraries for more than a century, so I think this will be the first performance to make use of that arrangement.”

Dutton discovered Bizet’s unpublished arrangement while he was searching for other Mozart-related works and noticed a mention of it in a biography of Bizet.

“I finally managed to get a photocopy of the whole 250-page manuscript from the British Library,” he says.

Dutton also has included arrangements of two arias from “Don Giovanni” for two treble instruments that Mozart’s widow Constanza sold to the publisher Johann Andre after her husband’s death.

“And we will be celebrating another birthday on this concert,” he says, “by performing the Two Rhapsodies for oboe, viola and piano by Charles Martin Loeffler.”

Loeffler, the longtime associate concertmaster of the Boston Symphony, was born on Jan. 30.

“Since these pieces were inspired by poems written by Maurice Rollinat, I have asked Craig Rickett, who teaches drama at Spokane Falls Community College, to read the poems.”

The evening will be more than just a treat for the ears.

“I think quarter-millennium anniversary deserves more than just beautiful music,” Dutton says. “So, during the intermission we will serve a special Mozart birthday cake from the Culinary Arts Program at Spokane Community College.

“And Mozartkugeln, those delicious marzipan confections from Salzburg, will be available thanks to the Alpine Deli.”

For those wanting to get deeper into a culinary celebration of Mozart, Cafe Marron, 144 S. Cannon St. in Browne’s Addition, will prepare an authentic Austrian dinner Friday evening to celebrate the occasion.

Entrées and special Viennese desserts will be featured. For more information and reservations, call 456-8660.