{TABLE} Divertimento in D K136 ................. Mozart Piano Concerto in A K414 ............... Mozart Piano Concerto in E flat K271 .......... Mozart {/TABLE} THE second instalment of Hugh Tinney's Mozart piano concerto cycle, given at the NCH last night, offered music and music making of a different complexion to the first.
Whereas the opening concert presented works with rich wind scoring (including trumpets and drums in K482), the second programme focused on concertos calling for pairs of oboes and horns in addition to strings. And, in both pieces, conductor Geoffrey Spratt achieved altogether more, equable balances between the soloist and the players of the Orchestra of St Cecilia than in the earlier concert.
There were changes in the piano playing, too. The Concerto in AK414 seemed to find Hugh Tinney in somewhat self consciously assertive mode, demanding more volume from the Petrof concert grand being used for the series, and achieving this through a slightly uneasy brightness in the treble (an effect that was most noticeable in the first, movement).
The sense of poise and balance that was such a pleasurable feature in Tinney's playing at the first concert was not quite as consistent in this second outing, and it was in the central slow movements of the two concertos that the rewards of the music making were at their greatest. (In the cheerful opening Divertimento, where the string playing was not always tightly disciplined, it was, by contrast, the bright finale which sounded best).
Tinney unfolded the thinly accompanied solo writing of the Andante in K414 with captivating intimacy, and Spratt sculpted some of the exposed string writing of the Andantino in K271 with memorable poignancy. It's clear, though, that conductor and soloist approach phrasing with very different perspectives, Spratt in short breathed bursts, Tinney with long spanned overview. It's turning out to be one of the special interests in these series how the two men appear to be working successfully towards a greater area of common ground.
