South Florida Classical Review

Shunske Sato performed music of Bach and Mozart with the New World Symphony Saturday night.

The New World Symphony’s Mozart and Bach program on Saturday night with violinist and leader Shunske Sato looked, on paper, like a reasonably pleasant musicale. From the moment Sato entered the New World Center stage, however, it offered considerably more.

An expert in historical performance, professor at the Amsterdam Conservatory and former concertmaster and artistic leader of the Netherlands Bach Society, Sato is a musical force to be reckoned with. His enlivening presence resulted in propulsive, vibrant music-making that removed the stodginess of tradition in favor of interpretive adventurousness.

Mozart’s Symphony No. 1 in E-flat Major is the work of an 8 year old composer. Hardly a timeless masterpiece, it is still a remarkable achievement for a creative artist who has not yet reached his teens. All the hallmarks of Mozart’s style are already present in this ten-minute opus. The graceful thematic invention and invigorating orchestral writing that are the composer’s hallmarks abound in the score’s three brief movements.

Directing and often playing his violin, Sato commanded crisp articulation and tight ensemble from a 25-member contingent of the academy’s fellows. Sharp accents defined the sheer exuberance of the performance, the Molto allegro marking given x-ray clarity. The Andante introduces a four-note figure in the winds, rendered with delicacy, that Mozart would utilize again in the finale of his Jupiter Symphony. The contrasts of major and minor, darkness and light that infuse the slow movements of Mozart’s late piano concertos already make an appearance. A final Presto resounded in bumptious fashion, almost like a rustic dance.

Mozart’s first three keyboard concertos are actually transcriptions for piano and orchestra of sonatas by Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of J.S. Bach. Known as the London Bach, his music is notable for its formal grace, more stately and inhibited than Mozart’s forward looking creations.

Sato has transcribed Mozart’s Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Major, itself an arrangement of J.C. Bach’s Sonata No. 2, into a piece for violin and strings. He offered the work’s opening Allegro in a reinvention similar in manner to Mozart’s five concertos for the instrument. Sato’s speed, affinity for classical style and warmth of sonority fit the music like a charm. The movement was topped by a virtuosic cadenza, a tour de force that suggests Paganini as much as the eighteenth century, dashed off with devilish zeal by Sato.

J.C. Bach’s Symphony in G minor, Op. 6, no.6 is an early example of Sturm und Drang hat clearly influenced Haydn, particularly in that master’s middle-period symphonies. The opening bars of the initial Allegro were marked by fierce string attacks but the players lightened up for the more aristocratic secondary subject. The string and wind writing is remarkably advanced for its era (17700. An insistent bass line dominates the Andante, piu tosto adagio. Sato maintained tension while bringing forth varied instrumental details. There was an abundance of elan and sparkle in the concluding Allegro molto with a witty surprise ending worthy of Haydn.

Hannah Corbett, a first-year violin fellow from Ontario, Canada, joined Sato for J.S. Bach’s Concerto in D minor for Two Violins. Many of the academy members who were not playing in this program were in the audience and cheered Corbett upon her initial appearance on stage. She proved in no way Sato’s lesser, playing in an agile manner and exhibiting a real affinity for Baroque period interpretation. The two violins blended winningly, with tangy and virile tone. Sato’s brisk tempo offered a reminder that this masterpiece was, in fact, conceived as entertainment music and first performed at Bach’s concert series at Zimmermann’s Coffee House in Leipzig. Corbett’s clear and bright sound contrasted nicely with Sato’s darker tonal heft in the Largo ma non troppo.

The conversation between the two string voices was carefully melded with a natural flow in the musicians’ broad pacing.  The deft underpinning of Noah Sonderling’s harpsichord was directly present without becoming overly obtrusive.  Rarely has the concluding Allegro been taken at such a rapid clip as Corbett and Sato ventured. Light on its bowing and feet, the music seemed to dance off the stage. The orchestral players’ energy and smiles indicated their enjoyment equaled that of the audience which rose to its feet at the final chord.

The program’s second half commenced with J.S. Bach’s Fugue in E Major from The Well Tempered Klavier in Mozart’s string arrangement as a prelude to the fugal writing of the Salzburg wunderkind’s final symphony. Bach’s noble theme emerged spacious and cleanly articulated.

The Symphony No. 41 in C Major (Jupiter) is one of the greatest works in symphonic literature. Sato’s reading of this Mozartean classic was anything but conventional. The first two movements were marked by sudden pauses, palpably slower tempos, then sudden bursts of speed. Eccentric, to be sure, but also compelling and stimulating. For a period-instrument specialist, this was surprisingly big-band Mozart.

Sato drew a big sound from an ensemble considerably larger than on the concert’s first half. The hairpin variations of dynamics added immediacy to the high-voltage music making. There was drama and weight in the second movement with Sato bringing out the poignancy behind the classical surface gleam.

After the wild ride through the first two movements, the Menuetto sprang forth in a more straightforward manner, the trio given Haydenesque humor and charm. The challenges of the Molto allegro finale were fully met. Fugal lines came through with total transparency and the precision was buttressed by the silky smoothness of the strings.

Was Sato’s rapid tempo the way one always wants to hear this music? Definitely not, but it provided a fascinating artistic viewpoint from a major artist one wants to hear more from in future New World presentations. Rarely do Mozart symphonies receive cheers and yelps from an audience but Sato and the players were awarded with that from listeners energized by the vitality of the performance.

The New World Symphony repeats the program 2 p.m. Sunday at the New World Center in Miami Beach.  nws.edu

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