Bath Mozartfest 2024 – take 2

PLAYWRIGHT, composer and actor Noel Coward and American entertainer Danny Kaye come to mind when summarising the 34th Bath Mozart Fest.

Coward was a great one for finding the right venue for his plays, sometimes delaying an opening night until the right theatre was available, and festival artistic director Amelia Freedman matches The Master all the way when it comes to finding the right venue for those performing at the Mozart Fest.

Where better than the elegant Assembly Rooms for the Pavel Haas Quartet to get the festival away to a flying start, for Scottish pianist Steven Osborne and German cellist Alban Gerhart to add some delightful humour to their introductions and playing, for pianist Angela Hewitt and the London Mozart Players to display a beautiful balance of piano and chamber group, and the talents of The Nash Ensemble, because of their long standing commitment to the Fest considered by many regulars among the audience as the In House Orchestra.

The same venue was a perfect setting for Sir Andras Schiff to play, with great delicacy, Piano Sonatas by Mozart and Haydn, the Takas Quartet to add Beethoven’s String Quartet No 7 to compositions by the same composers, and the Leonkoro Quartet to add Brahms clarinet, soloist Annelien Van Wauwe, to the Joseph Haydn and Mozart compositions.

The very different atmosphere of the Guildhall provided an excellent home for pianist Alexei Grynyuk to finish his lunchtime concert with Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No 9. If you decided to make a day of it, on the same evening the Modigliani String Quartet would have rounded off your day in fine style playing Mozart, Turina, Ravel and Beethoven. The next formidable double header at the Guildhall was provided by Onyx Brass, who brought their own distinctive style to a wide-ranging programme which included works by Bizet, Greig, Farrenc, Franz and Mendelssohn, followed in the evening by mezzo soprano Sarah Connolly and Joseph Middleton, who offered to an appreciative audience music by Schubert and Schumann.

Just as fine actors have an individual method of connecting with an audience, so to with the Amatis Trio and Stephen Waarts, violin, and Martin Klett, piano, who occupied the final two lunchtime spots in the Guildhall. The Trio drew the audience, via their informative friendly introductions, right into the heart of their playing of Beethoven and Mendelssohn piano trios, whereas, with equal commitment and intensity, Waarts and Klett preferred to keep their verbal powder dry leaving their playing to do all the talking for them.

Neither the Tallis Scholars nor the Sixteen Choir and Orchestra, with their programmes of early music, and Mozart’s Verum Corpus and J Haydn’s Nelson Mass, would have sat well in the Assembly Rooms, or the Guildhall, but they were ideally placed – and much appreciated – in St Mary’s Bathwick and Bath Abbey.

The reason that Danny Kaye comes to mind when examining the wonderfully full programme Amelia Freedman assembled for this year’s festival, is a comic song in which, in approximately two minutes, he rattled off the name of almost every classical music composer you can think of. The number of composers represented in this years very wide ranging Mozart Fest leaves your mind spinning along the same lines, trying to remember how many composers were represented in Bath Mozart Fest 2024.

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I AM in good company when I use the phrase ‘Good things come in small packages’, which has been attributed to, amongst others, Benjamin Franklin, Cicero, Martin Luther, Woodrow Wilson and Mark Twain. Its a phrase that perfectly sums up Bath’s annual hymn to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Bath Mozart Fest.

For just under a fortnight each November, thanks to the wonderful forward planning, insider knowledge of who’s who in the world of chamber music, and persuasive ability of Artistic Director Amelia Freedman, the city is flooded, day and night, with the finest music of this genre – music designed to fit ideally into the beautiful surroundings of the Assembly Rooms, Guildhall, St Mary’s Bathwick, finishing with biggest group on view, The Sixteen Choir and Orchestra, in the splendour of Bath Abbey.

To say that the festival hit the ground running would be putting it mildly. The world-renowned Czech Pavel Haas Quartet delighted the audience in the Assembly Rooms with their programme of Mozart, Dvorak, and Tchaikovsky. The following morning, German cellist Alban Gerhardt, and Scottish pianist Steven Osborne started everybody’s day off on a joyful note with music by Schumann, Brahms, de Falla and Ravel. Angela Hewitt took over the piano stool in the evening to play and conduct The London Mozart Players in an all-Mozart programme including Piano Concertos 8, 9 and 12.

The Nash Ensemble, founded 60 years ago by Amelia Freedman, and the strongest supporters of the festival during its 34-year life, had a hall filled by their eagerly anticipating fans. Their programme of works by Britten, Mozart and Beethoven did not disappoint, sending their supporters home already looking forward to the return of the Nash next year.

The Guildhall takes over for the beginning of this week with lunchtime and evening concerts, mezzo soprano Sarah Connelly and pianist Joseph Middleton combine one evening and Stephen Waarts violin and Martin Klett one lunchtime. Onyx Brass and Amatus Trio can also be discovered in the Guildhall. A marriage made in heaven was how the Tallis Scholars visit to St Mary’s, Bathwick was described last year and their return, under the baton of Peter Phillips, is a mouth-watering prospect. As is pianist Sir Andras Schiff, who will be playing piano sonatas by Mozart and Haydn in the Assembly Rooms, which is also the venue for Hungary’s Takacs Quartet and the always-exciting BBC 3 New Generation Artists.

Saturday 16th November sees the grand finale of this year’s fest, when The Sixteen Choir and Orchestra present a delightful combination of music by Mozart and Joseph Haydn. Whilst this magnificent setting fits this programme ideally, it takes nothing away from the other three wonderfully atmospheric venues that prove beyond doubt that musically good things undoubtedly can come in small packages.

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