Review: ‘Summer at Orchestra Hall’ opens with a high-energy concert of Mozart and Beethoven

As Minneapolis’ Orchestra Hall celebrates its 50th birthday, I find myself looking back fondly upon the breezy evenings of Sommerfest.

For decades, the Minnesota Orchestra centered summer around the music (and sausages, beer and desserts) of Vienna. There was a festive feel to the “Marktplatz” out on Peavey Plaza, and, once inside, you could enjoy the music of 18th- and 19th-century composers who lived in Vienna, such as Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Beethoven, Johannes Brahms and the “waltz king,” Johann Strauss, Jr.

While Sommerfest is no more, the orchestra still presents four weeks of concerts dubbed “Summer at Orchestra Hall,” with this year’s focus being music of the 1920s. But first: a flashback. This weekend’s opening concerts hearken back to the Sommerfest days with a program of Mozart and Beethoven, between them music of a French contemporary, Joseph Bologne.

If you’re longing for a high-energy adrenaline rush of a concert, consider this one. Friday night’s summer opener was a fast and furious delight, with a very entertaining conductor — Bulgaria’s Delyana Lazarova — proving a joy to watch. Her Minnesota Orchestra debut featured many an intriguing interpretive twist. And one of the orchestra’s violinists, Natsuki Kumagai, stepped out of the section to make a convincing case that Bologne’s violin concertos deserve more attention.

Lazarova took everything at a pretty brisk clip, and that worked well for most of the program, but — for the orchestra’s first performance in 20 years of Mozart’s marvelous overture to the opera, “Don Giovanni” — I wished that the conductor didn’t rush through that deliciously menacing opening so swiftly and instead allowed the tension to breathe and build. But when the mood lightened and the pace picked up, it became an unfailingly fun concert.

If you’re unfamiliar with Joseph Bologne, look him up, for his is one of the most fascinating biographies of any composer in history. A Black man born into slavery in the Caribbean, he was sent to France at a young age by his plantation owner father and grew into one of Europe’s most celebrated musicians and swordsmen, eventually playing a role in the French revolution. The Paris orchestras he led premiered symphonies by Haydn and Mozart, and he was among the continent’s finest violinists.

His Violin Concerto in A (one of 14 he wrote) is all about flair and flamboyance, and Kumagai brought plenty of each to her fiery interpretation. Fleet of fingers and passionate in her attacks, she made each extended solo a thrill in the breakneck outer movements, but also suffused the central Largo with soft whispers, soaring upward to glassy high notes.

Lazarova and the orchestra also had exciting things in store for Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony. An interpretation of unflagging intensity, it featured lots of interesting ideas about bringing hidden lines and exchanges between instruments to the forefront in adventurous new ways. The conductor emphasized the journeys back and forth between gentle and explosive, and the orchestra responded to her leadership with enthusiasm and crispness.

On Sunday afternoon, Lazarova, Kumagai and the orchestra will close Winona’s Minnesota Beethoven Festival with the same program.

With: Conductor Delyana Lazarova and violinist Natsuki Kumagai

What: Works by Mozart, Joseph Bologne and Beethoven

When and where: 7 p.m. Sat., Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Mpls.; 4 p.m. Sun., Winona Middle School Auditorium, 1570 Homer Road, Winona

Tickets: $20-$75, available at 612-371-5656, minnesotaorchestra.org or mnbeethovenfestival.org

Rob Hubbard is a Twin Cities classical music writer. Reach him at wordhub@yahoo.com.