All Mozart, all the time with Omaha Symphony

February is shaping up to be a mostly Mozart month in Omaha.

Starting Feb. 26, Opera Omaha will launch a four-season survey of Mozart’s operas with its performance of “The Marriage of Figaro.” And this weekend at the Holland Performing Arts Center, the Omaha Symphony is presenting a terrific all-Mozart concert featuring a piano concerto written at roughly the same time as “Figaro.”

The Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491, is one of only two such works the composer wrote in a dark minor key. And it’s arguably his finest creation in the genre.

Completed in 1786, the concerto boasts the largest wind complement Mozart ever used in a concerto, giving the work an unprecedented power and richness of tone. The outer movements are full of storm, stress and haunting lyricism. The second movement larghetto is among the most beautiful works Mozart ever created, a romance that is so intensely affecting that it seemingly stops time.

Pianist Andrew Armstrong, the guest soloist, proved to be a serious and stylish interpreter of this music. He played Mozart’s fleet-fingered passagework with the beauty and evenness of a strand of pearls. And he performed lyrical sections with unfailing warmth and sensitivity.

Mozart almost surely improvised his solo cadenzas in this concerto. If he ever wrote any of these notes down, they have not survived.

Armstrong composed his own cadenza for the first movement, and it definitely captured the spirit of the piece. His cadenza was alternately lyrical and dramatic. At times, it sounded like one of Beethoven’s virtuosic flights of fancy.

Guest conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni’s interpretation of the concerto was in complete agreement with Armstrong’s. Both artists saw this work, even in its most dramatic moments, as an essentially lyrical piece.

Zeitouni, a Canadian conductor, had a similar approach to the opening work, the Overture to Don Giovanni, K. 527. The results, however, were less successful.

Zeitouni took great pains to shape beautifully nuanced phrases. The orchestra responded with playing that was as gorgeous as a love song. But the overture’s dramatic passagework never caught fire –– a necessary ingredient in music about a man who is dragged to hell.

Mozart’s Overture to the Magic Flute, K. 620, which opened the second half, had no shortcomings. The piece was beautifully conducted with gestures that were expressive and expansive. The musicians, for their parts, played with speed, precision and gossamer lightness.

Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 in C major, “Jupiter,” K. 551, which closed the concert, is the crowning achievement of 18th-century symphonic music, and the Omaha Symphony did it justice.

Zeitouni called on the orchestra to play with soaring lyricism and transcendent joy. He also demanded a brisk pace, generous sound and tight ensemble, and the orchestra delivered those goods, tossing off the complex contrapuntal writing in the finale as if it were child’s play. It won a warm and appreciative ovation.

Contact the writer:

444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com

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