Major Mozart conference and concerts featured on campus, March 27-30

By Linda Myers

Say the name Mozart to non-scholars and you'll evoke the boy-genius-in-spite-of-himself in the film version of the Peter Shaffer play "Amadeus," whose every touch of the keyboard produced exquisite, infinitely complex sounds, and who was the source of much envy from his more-plodding contemporaries.

While the historical accuracy of the portrayal has been questioned by scholars, the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart continues to reign supreme 212 years after his death. But the keyboard concertos, sonatas and other works of the 18th century Austrian musical prodigy did not occur in a vacuum. Rather, they were very much a part of the musical scene throughout Europe that flourished in the era of Mozart, who was considered the greatest keyboard performer and composer of his day and who still fascinates.

This March 27-30, the Mozart Society of America will hold its Second Biennial Conference on the Cornell campus. "Mozart and the Keyboard Culture of His Time" offers a series of presentations, concerts and exhibitions on how Mozart composed and how he influenced, and was influenced by, the culture around him. Most talks and discussions take place in Neylan Rehearsal Hall, B20 Lincoln Hall.

For a full schedule, registration information and historical and musical background on Mozart, contact Loralyn Light at 255-4760, ll48@cornell.edu, or visit this Web site: http://www.unlv.edu/mozart/2003conf.html. The conference is free to members of the Cornell community and open to all. Key sponsors are Cornell's Department of Music, Institute for German Cultural Studies and Council for the Arts.

Zaslaw

"An important focus of the conference will be the great diversity of keyboard instruments and sounds available to Mozart and other performers of his time," said Neal Zaslaw, the Herbert Gussman Professor of Music at Cornell. "A wealth of sources still exists on the instruments, playing techniques and social circumstances that gave rise to his music and the music of his contemporaries," noted Zaslaw, who is considered a world authority on the music of Mozart and is the editor of a new edition of the Koechel catalog of the composer's works.

One purpose of the conference, Zaslaw said, is to take Mozart off his well-deserved pedestal temporarily in order to look realistically at what informed his musical decisions. As an example, Zaslaw noted that Mozart composed many accompanied keyboard pieces with far more difficult parts for the piano than for the violin, rather than the other way around. He attributes that to the demand for such pieces in Mozart's day -- an era when women from wealthy families were expected to attain a high level of piano facility so that they could entertain at at-home concerts, whereas young men from such families were only required to gain limited skills with the violin.

One of the premier events of the conference will be an all-Mozart concert on Saturday, March 29, at 8 p.m. in Sage Chapel, featuring Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra from Toronto and Cornell's Malcolm Bilson, the Frederick J. Whiton Professor of Music, as fortepiano soloist. Tafelmusik specializes in historical performance practice, and the concert will be played on period instruments or faithful replicas of such instruments. Pieces to be performed are Concerto in G Major for fortepiano and orchestra, K. 453; the "Serenata notturna" in D Major, K. 239; and Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550. The concert is sponsored by the Cornell Concert Series. Tickets, which are limited, range from $21 to $33, general admission, and $14 to $20, for students, and must be purchased in advance at the Willard Straight Hall ticket office on campus, at the ticket center at the Clinton House in downtown Ithaca, through the Web site http://www.art.cornell.edu/ccs or by calling 273-4497.

Included in the conference are three free concerts: a chamber concert Thursday, March 27, at 8 p.m. in Neylan Rehearsal Hall, B20 Lincoln Hall, of arrangements of Mozart's keyboard music; a duo concert Friday, March 28, at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall, featuring accompanied keyboard sonatas by Abel, Schuster and Mozart, performed by David Breitman (Cornell DMA '92), associate professor of historical performance at the Oberlin College-Conservatory of Music, and Brian Brooks (Ph.D. '02), an established violinist in Europe; and a concert of Mozart church music Sunday, March 30, at 2 p.m. in Barnes Hall, titled "A Salzburg Mass for Peace." The Sunday concert features the Missa brevis in F Major, K. 192, for soloists, choir and period orchestra, conducted by Cornell professor emeritus Thomas Sokol. Performers include organist Annette Richards, associate professor of music, Les petits violons led by Michael Sand, and the Cayuga Vocal Ensemble directed by Lawrence Doebler.

Musical performances, illustrating the papers being presented, also will take place throughout the daytime sessions. On Saturday, March 29, at 3:30 p.m. in the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art on campus, a special session on Mozart and the pedal clavier will feature two different types of pedal pianos and a pedal clavichord.

"Those who attend will get a rare and exciting glimpse of a performance practice important to Mozart but rarely heard today," noted Zaslaw.

Other topics addressed during the conference range from women in Mozart's keyboard music, to a musical competition on the eve of the French Revolution to different keyboard genres. In addition to Cornell, presenters are from universities in Germany, Austria, Canada, Israel, Great Britain and elsewhere in the United States.

In conjunction with the conference, the Johnson Museum will host an exhibition of keyboard instruments drawn from collections at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and elsewhere. The exhibition runs from March 22 to June 15.

The musical sources and documents of 18th-century keyboard culture are highlighted in a Kroch Library exhibition on campus through May 30, sponsored by the Department of Music, the Sidney Cox Library of Music and Dance and Cornell Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.