Janine Jansen plays Mozart completely natural, sincere and well in Groningen. For a moment there was a threat of prettiness at Camerata Salzburg review ★★★★☆

The cosmopolitan city of New York has a series of summer concerts called Mostly Mozart, where world star (not her own words) played Janine Jansen in a program that contained only Mozart, and not the most famous, such as the Old Lambacher called symphony where Camerata entered Salzburg tight and disciplined.

Mozart according to Jansen

It was the famous piece Fifth Violin Concerto in which it slowly but surely became audible how Jansen very gradually shaped Mozart to her liking. Her first entry offers plenty of scope for this, because it has nothing to do with the preceding orchestral introduction. Even after that, she knew how to bend the music to her will, in combination with the orchestra through a beautiful wide range of tonal colors. Partly thanks to subtle easing in pace and strength levels; up to very soft, while Mozart has little more notation than piano and forte. With Jansen it all seems completely natural, it sounds sincere and (of course) very good. The orchestra juggled with larger nuances in volume, and there was sometimes the danger of mere pretense. Partly because of this, the folksy intermezzo in the final minuet sounded more charged than just playful, just like a rising and falling motif of six notes in the orchestra.

Freedoms

In the unknown to just about everyone Concerto for two violins – Mozart’s father called it one Concertone – quite a bit of tempo space was taken every now and then, also by the other soloists from the orchestra. Then, just like before, the question arose why there wasn’t even really played in tempo. Concertmaster Gregory Ahss turned out to be an excellent fellow soloist, which pleasantly put Jansen’s world star status into perspective.