Caroline Baird ArtistsPinkhill House
Oxford Road, Eynsham
Oxfordshire OX29 4DA
t & f: (44) 1865 882 771
e: caroline@cbartists.sol.co.uk
Caroline Baird Artists
Caroline Baird Artists has toured the LONDON MOZART PLAYERS to Germany in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2008 & 2009 including concerts at the prestigious Rheingau Music Festival and Wuerzburg Mozartfest and a tour to mark the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth with conductor/soloists Sir James Galway and Howard Shelley.
In July 2009 LMP and Howard Shelley were invited to the Rheingau Musik Festival to mark the bicentenaries of Mendelssohn's birth and Haydn's death with two concerts each featuring a Mendelssohn Piano Concerto and two of Haydn's 'London' symphonies.
Below are the excellent reviews from the 2009 Rheingau Festival:
Wiesbadener Tagblatt, 27.07.2009
Wiesbadener Tagblatt 27.09.2009
"People seem very pleased with it, though I myself do not like it much" wrote the 22 year old Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy about his first Piano Concerto in G Minor. At the performance given by Howard Shelley and the London Mozart Players in the Friedrich-von-Thiersch-Saal at the Kurhaus you could understand the reactions of both Mendelssohn and his audience. Apart from the rumbling thunder of the opening out of which the piece, under the piano's influence, develops into translucent and dreamy beauty with the ease and style of an operetta, the orchestra rarely has an individual voice.
But if, as in 1831 and in this performance too, the pianist is also music director and leaps up to conduct at the end of each of his solo sections, the orchestra becomes far more a direct expansion of the piano part with endless possibilities. When the conductor sits down again to play the next piano solo section one has a much greater awareness of the spiritualising momentum than if he had handed over to another pianist. Both eye and ear appreciated a piece of artistry without any hint of mere showmanship. The occasional slight unevenness only served to prove that the orchestra was in no way just a backing track. Shelley played as encore one of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, creating an atmosphere of composure and intimacy.
Whereas Haydn's Symphony No.97 in C had served in terms of drama as a somewhat low-key play-in piece, both conductor and orchestra seemed to reach top form in the "Clock" Symphony No.101 in D. Dynamics were well thought through and implemented, tempi differentiated with quick-witted accuracy, more intense sections thoroughly developed, and general pauses and other similar surprise moments placed with care. An impressive technique was displayed in the smooth playing by the strings and the wind section’s precise articulation, in particular the flutes with their faultlessly rippling thirds. The final encore was Mozart's Overture to the Marriage of Figaro.
Doris Kösterke
Frankfurter Neue Presse, 27.07.2009
Frankfurter Neue Presse, 27.07.2009
The London Mozart Players, appearing in the Rheingau Music Festival in the Wiesbaden Kurhaus with Howard Shelley, showed what they are made of.
Not a trace of classical smoothness: this Mendelssohn was a rebel showing aggression and strong emotions - a restless ghost par excellence. In Mendelssohn's 1st Piano Concerto in G minor Howard Shelley, combining the roles of soloist and conductor, set a terrific tempo, letting the score blaze out dramatically and the orchestra, right on the ball, reacted with lightning speed to the impassioned momentum. This Mendelssohn indeed lived up to the "con fuoco" demanded in the first movement and in the nimble Vivace-finale Shelley conjured up a sheer fantastical scene of elfin mischief. After that we really did need as encore a "Song without Words" to lower the pulse rate again.
The London Mozart Players demonstrated how intimate they are with the music of Haydn when they played two of his "London" Symphonies, one either side of the Mendelssohn Concerto. The concert opened with the 5th London Symphony in C in which the orchestra were able, however much vivacity was demanded, to bring out also the tender elegance and dignity. But the thing which made their playing so thrilling was the trenchant way they dealt with Haydn's humour, his over-subtleties, the little moments he includes when he deliberately sets out to confuse and to keep leading the audience astray on to black ice.
For classical music in Haydn's case means playing a game with the expectations of the spoilt public, time and again producing new surprises to keep it happy. This is just what happens in the 9th London Symphony, nicknamed "The Clock". Shelley and the London Mozart Players intensified the "tick tock" motif in the Andante movement from its very quiet beginnings to a menacing rumble of thunder, and the tempestuous final movement could only be topped by Mozart's "Figaro" Overture played as an effervescent encore. An exciting evening which once again confirmed Haydn's genius, so often underestimated.
Michael Dellith