J Kat Photo

Michael Francis conducting Mahler 4

The Mainly Mozart Festival is in full flight. This year’s proceedings started on Thursday, June 15, and have gone from strength, to strength, to strength, to sublime.

The first concert saw LA Philharmonic principal bassoonist Whitney Crocket handle Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto as if it were no big deal. Music Director Michael Francis then led The Festival Orchestra in a celebration of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8.

The second concert put The Festival Orchestra string sections to the test with a string orchestra version of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 11 arranged by Gustav Mahler–more on him later. Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott finished the concert with a definitive performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25.

We’ve now gone from strength to strength with Mozart and Beethoven in the first two concerts. The third strength was violinist Karen Gomyo playing the bejeezus out of the Brahms Violin Concerto. I cannot imagine a better performance.

As a former member of the Mainly Mozart staff, I have a lot of familiarity with the festival. This year I’m involved with the festival as a shuttle driver for the musicians and as a resource for the video crew projecting the performances onto video screens for the audience. I’ve been at every rehearsal. I’ve talked shop with some of the musicians in the shuttle. Over the past week, or so, the festival has become something of a routine for me.

The extraordinary music-making has become commonplace. While I don’t consider myself to be a critic, I do write critiques from time to time. In writing about these concerts I have to remind myself of just how extraordinary they are. However, now we come to the sublime.

Sublime is not a word I use willy-nilly. I reserve it for experiences that are authentically sublime. The sublime exists outside of the perceived realm of possibilities. On Tuesday, June 20, Mainly Mozart presented a concert that exceeded my conception of musical possibilities.

The concert was of a chamber arrangement of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. 16 members of The Festival Orchestra and Micheal Francis made me a believer. My official position is that I’m not that hot for Mahler’s Fourth but this version changed that.

Part of the magic was the venue. The Baker-Baum concert hall at The Conrad Prebys Music Center is a fantastic setting for an intimate experience. With so many outdoor concerts over the past several years, I’d almost forgotten what music feels like. I could feel Mahler’s music in the hall and I liked it.

I think it is fair to say that musicians on the stage exhibited a certain courage. Each of them was completely exposed for the entire evening. Bobble one note and it would be obvious to all. Every one of them was solid as a rock. The tuning was impeccable. The focus was undeniable and the result was sublime.