Bath Mozart Fest
The Assembly Rooms, Bath
★★★★✩
KEEN fishermen, those who have never picked up a rod, and fans of the TV series Waiting for God, would have been equally delighted to have been in the Assembly Rooms to listen to the Nash Ensemble finish their splendid programme which started the evening performances of the 2022 Bath Mozart Fest. Having already delighted their audience with Mozart’s Quintet in E flat major, for horn and strings, Richard Watkins, horn, the same composer’s String Quartet No 5 in D major and Mendelssohn’s Song Without Words, the Ensemble, showing no signs that there were two late changes in their personnel as they concluded with Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A major, The Trout. With Alisdair Beatson in boisterous mood on the piano they played the work with the enthusiasm of musicians coming across it for the first time.
Earlier in the day the delightful partnership of father and daughter Jennifer (violin) and Jeremy Pike (piano) had opened week two of the Fest with a lovely mixture of works by Mozart, Cara Schumann, and Greig. The duo’s paying received the warn reception it deserved. As did pianist Simon Trpceski for his Sunday evening concert. Those who did not attend missed a treat of virtuoso piano playing as Trpceski moved from Mozart to Brahms, to Beethoven and his beloved Prokofiev, Tales of an Old Grandmother and Piano Sonata No 7.
The Amatis Trio, Mozart, Suk, and Mendelssohn, Roderick William, baritone, Susie Allen, piano, with a birthday celebration for Ralph Vaughn Williams, and The Teyber Trio, Kodaly’s Intermezzo for String Trio, and Mozart, Divertimento in E flat major, kept this wonderful musical cauldron bubbling over in fine style before the London Mozart Players swept into town with a show-stopping programme. Haydn’s Symphony No 55, served as an hors d’oeuvres before Michael Collins took centre stage with a rendition of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A major.
The Players, led by violin/conductor Simon Blendis, fought back with a joyful presentation of Mozart’s Symphony No 40 which brought the evening to a rousing conclusion.