Paul Lewis directs Mozart

Monday 18 May 2009  7.30pm
London Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall

Wednesday 20 May 2009 7.30pm
Newbury Corn Exchange

Thursday 21 May 2009 8pm
Cambridge West Road Concert Hall

The Guardian
The Times

The Guardian
By Andrew Clements
Wednesday 20 May 2009

When pianists and orchestras perform without a conductor, it’s generally the soloist who takes charge, setting tempi and cuing entries when he can between his keyboard duties. But in Paul Lewis’s collaboration with Britten Sinfonia for two Mozart concertos, there was none of those split responsibilities. Lewis left all the co-ordination to orchestra leader Jacqueline Shave, so that he could concentrate on playing. 

This low-key but practical arrangement produced outstanding results. Shave did what she needed to, and the orchestra watched and listened to Lewis. In the A major concerto K414 his performance was lithe and thoroughly musical, never loading the work with more expressive weight than it could bear, but coming up with sidelights such as the anticipation of early Beethoven in the opening of the andante. The B flat concerto K595 is a challenge of a different order, but Lewis again kept the work within strictly classical bounds. If some of the pathos that can be wrung from it was missing as a result, he made its simplicity disarmingly effective.

Richard Strauss provided the contrast - the string sextet that opens his final opera Capriccio, and the Serenade in E flat for 13 wind instruments, written when he was just 17. Both performances were affectionately shaped, even if there could have been a silkier string sound for the sextet, and a more homogenous wind blend in the serenade, but they complemented the equally bright-toned Mozart perfectly. 

Paul Lewis directs Mozart was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Thursday 21 May, 7pm.

The Sunday Times
Sunday 24 May 2009
BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Doubles premiere
Latest score by Brian Elia, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment andthe Britten Sinfonia at Queen Elizabeth Hall
By Paul Driver
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/live_reviews/article6328455.ece

(full artical relating to Brian Elia and OAE at link above)...At Queen Elizabeth Hall, Britten Sinfonia offered a captivating, conductorless programme. Strauss’s string-sextet prelude to his last opera, Capriccio, and precocious one-movement wind Serenade in E flat, Op 7, were prefaces in the respective halves to Mozart’s Piano Concertos No 12 in A, K414, and No 27 in B flat, K595, with the soloist Paul Lewis. He was also credited as director, but, impressively, did absolutely nothing by way of signalling time to the orch­estra. Pianists who conduct and play always make themselves slightly ridiculous, and this orchestra, with its powerful leader, Jacqueline Shave, and such eminences as the first oboe, Nicholas Daniel, hardly needs to be patronised. Lewis’s interpretations were absorbing. His intensity of phrasing, leonine alertness, wit and depth of tone had me wondering if there is a better Mozartian around today.