Happy Birthday Wolfy

In this episode of “Sometimes I leave my apartment and don’t go to my office, Kroger, the library, band, or church,”¹ I celebrate Mozart’s birthday with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra (A²SO) at the Michigan Theater. Because I’m cheap, I only pay to sit in the back of the balcony. Will I be able to hear the orchestra? Will I be able to see the orchestra? Will Mozart be properly feted? Find out next time right after this commercial break by reading the next line.

Yes. It was a good concert. It was the first time I’ve been in the audience at the Michigan Theater instead of on the stage². I could see and hear just fine, unless scores of people reading this are now going to buy balcony tickets at future A²SO performances, in which case my seat was horrible; there was a pillar three inches in front of my face, you needed binoculars to find the stage, and the acoustics made the orchestra sound like a chorus of kazoos.

The orchestra opened with a premier of a piece by a UM composition student. That was followed by the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, which was the main/actual reason I was at Mozart’s Birthday Bash. This clarinet concerto was composed in 1791 for Anton Stadler on the Basset clarinet and was one of Mozart’s last works. It’s been used in movies – the second movement in Out of Africa and the first in The King’s Speech. During high school, I had the misfortune pleasure of suffering through playing this clarinet concerto under the tutelage of my clarinet teacher. After months of agonizing diligent practice, we produced an instant platinum album a single CD recorded by an iPhone. Naturally, when I found out the A²SO would be playing this piece, I had to get a ticket to see it.

It’s a different experience listening to a performance of a piece that you’ve spent months playing. Being familiar with a piece is one thing; knowing every rest, run, and arpeggio is quite another. But since up through the end of the eighteenth century, many composers used few dynamic/stylistic markings, every publisher (and player) of the Clarinet Concerto has a slightly different interpretation of the piece. Other things of note: the soloist played the concerto on the Basset (A) clarinet instead of transposed for the Bb clarinet, and he wore a neon yellow/gold suit jacket that I could very clearly see from the back of the theater.

After intermission, the second half of the concert featured Mozart’s first and last symphonies. His first symphony was written in 1764 at the age of eight. I was still over a year away from picking up a clarinet at the age of eight. His last symphony, Symphony No. 41, was composed in 1788. It’s a little more complex than his first symphony. Just slightly. It’s three times as long, is scored for more instruments, and includes five themes going at the same time at the end of the fourth movement. But. Both his first and last symphonies contain the same four note motif . . . just surrounded by parts of varying complexity. I think that’s pretty cool.

And so, with a final chord, Mozart’s Birthday Bash concluded. I enjoyed myself, and also the chance to be in front of the stage, instead of on or behind it, for once.

¹Seriously, I haven’t left the Ann Arbor city limits in over two months. I have some thoughts on why this feels different from never leaving Ithaca while I was at Cornell, but I think that needs to be its own post.

²The Ann Arbor Concert Band also performs at the Michigan Theater.