MUSIC REVIEW : L.B. Bach Fest Opens With Mozart

Here we go again--another Baroque festival clambering aboard the Mozart Bicentennial bandwagon. Yet in its opening concert Saturday night at the Covenant Presbyterian Church, the Long Beach Bach Festival performed a service by reawakening a sleeping Mozart curiosity.

The cantata “Davidde Penitente,” K. 469, is really a later version of the “Great” Mass in C minor with a new Italian libretto and additional display arias. Of course, the styles clash, yet the inspiration level is so high that the work still makes vivid sense.

Tenor Paul Johnson’s assured, intense “A te, fra tanti affanni” was the outstanding solo contribution, while soprano Cynthia Westphal Johnson provided penetrating contrast to the more mellow, more secure soprano of Laura Fries. The Festival Chorus and Orchestra responded with unified fervor to conductor David Wilson.

The concert opened with the Piano Concerto No. 17, K. 453, in which pianist William Spiller’s polished, genteel work was enlivened by Wilson’s witty phrasing in the finale.