Bilson leads fifth annual Mozart Birthday Concert

Malcolm Bilson Photo by Andrea Felvégi

After a hiatus last year, the "Annual" Mozart Birthday Concert returns to Barnes Hall with two performances of "Mozart Arrangements" to mark the natal day of this most gifted composer on Tuesday, Feb. 1, and Wednesday, Feb. 2, at 8 p.m.

We know that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who dazzled royalty and the general public alike as he toured Europe with his sister and father, demonstrating his musical genius. We also know that he wrote hundreds of works from operas and sacred choral music to symphonies, concertos and chamber music, and he died as a young man while composing his "Requiem." Of all his music, the most familiar might include "Eine kleine Nachtmusik," "Die Zauberflöte" ("The Magic Flute") and Symphony in G Minor. Mozart was born in Salzburg on Jan. 27, 1756, and died in 1791.

With repertoire and performers the same for both performances, director Malcolm Bilson, Cornell's F.J. Whiton Professor, has organized a program of three works titled "Mozart Arrangements."

"This year's program is very unusual in that all the works are arrangements of original works in other forms by Mozart," Bilson said. "The concert opens with Mozart's own arrangement of the Overture to 'The Abduction from the Seraglio' for fortepiano, played by me. It is worth noting that the discovery of the authorship of this particular arrangement was made by Zvi Meniker, now professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany, while a student in our doctoral program here at Cornell."

The second work in the performance is the great G-Minor String Quintet, K. 516, this time actually arranged for fortepiano four hands by Meniker; Bilson and Meniker debuted the arrangement last year at the Mozartwoche in Salzburg. For these performances, it will be played by Frédéric Lacroix and Shane Levesque, both graduate students in the D.M.A. program under Bilson.

The second half of the program is devoted to the Serenade in B-flat Major for twelve winds and double bass, K. 361. Often referred to (although not by Mozart) as the "Gran Partitta," this arrangement for fortepiano, oboe and string trio is by Christian Friedrich Gottlieb Schwencke, an important Hamburg musician in the late 18th and early 19th century. The performers include Bilson on fortepiano and oboist Paige Morgan, violinist Kia-Hui Tan, violist Andrew Justice and cellist John Haines-Eitzen.