Mozart the Radical by Various, Sa. 12 Feb. 2022, Ab (2022/2022), Dirigat Richard Egarr, Herbst Theater, San Francisco, Vereinigte Staaten

Mozart was a composer who loved to test boundaries, and in his Symphony No. 38, you hear him pushing the orchestra of the day to the limit, expanding the horizons of the symphony. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of invention, a riot of creativity. At the start of the finale, Mozart cheekily squeezes in a little snippet of music from The Marriage of Figaro, so it’s only appropriate that we showcase some of his operatic writing too, including the concert aria “Will I forget you? … Fear not, beloved,” here with Elizabeth Watts in her PBO debut. Dark, tragic, and passionate, Mozart’s Concerto No. 24 was admired by none other than Beethoven, and for this concert, the original textures and sounds of the work are revealed with Richard Egarr performing it on a fortepiano, the instrument for which it was written.