Bezuidenhout Revisits McGegan’s Fortepiano

Keyboardist Kristian Bezuidenhout (photograph by Marco Borggreve, from the Gallery on Bezuidenhout’s Web site)

Last night Kristian Bezuidenhout returned to Herbst Theatre for his first appearance in San Francisco with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra since February of 2016. On that occasion he was concerto soloist in an All Mozart program that then Waverley Fund Music Director Nicholas McGegan had prepared and conducted. For the concerto performance McGegan provided his own fortepiano, built by Thomas and Barbara Wolf following the design of an instrument built around 1780 by Wenzel Schantz.

Last night Bezuidenhout performed on that same instrument. This time, however, he served as conductor, as well as concerto soloist. The title of the program was A Glassful of Mozart; and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was represented by a concerto in the first half of the program, K. 466 in D minor, and a symphony (K. 319 in B-flat major) as the concluding selection. Each of those pieces was preceded by the work of a contemporary composer. The symphony was coupled with the sixth symphony in Johann Christian Bach’s Opus 6 collection, composed in the key of G minor (the “relative minor key” of B-flat major). The program began with the overture to the opera Olympie by Joseph Martin Kraus (VB 33). Before beginning the performance, Bezuidenhout asked the audience to refrain from applause to allow a smooth transition from Kraus’ overture, also in D minor, to the first movement of K. 466.

When I wrote about Bezuidenhout’s 2016 performance for Examiner.com, I pointed out the subdued quality that he brought to playing McGegan’s fortepiano. On that occasion McGegan knew exactly how to balance his ensemble with that subdued quality of the keyboard work. Last night, however, Bezuidenhout-the-conductor never seemed to establish the right balance with Bezuidenhout-the-keyboardist. This meant that the intensity of the keyboard music never rose to a level that would balance against the forceful rhetoric of the instrumental ensemble.

That problem of balance also surfaced during the instrumental selections. Bezuidenhout conducted from the fortepiano, providing his own continuo work. For the most part, however, that continuo was barely audible (when it was audible at all). Mind you, there was more than enough activity in the ensemble to worry much about the absence of a continuo; but there was very much a sense that the overall sound qualities may have fallen beneath the conductor’s intentions.

Nevertheless, the program made for an engaging journey of discovery involving both individual compositions and the surrounding contexts. On the other hand I was more than a little piqued to discover that the program book did not bother to enumerate the movements in both the concerto and the two symphonies. This may be a minor quibble, but it made the overall experience feel a bit like following a baseball game without a scorecard! Ironically, the program notes did not compensate for this lack of information, nor did the Web page for this program (whose own PROGRAM NOTES section was blank when I consulted it this morning).