Lowe, The Mozartists, Page, Wigmore Hall - an education, not quite a triumph
Curate’s-egg focus on the year 1773 finds first-rate performers sometimes in trouble
Ian Page’s “journey of a lifetime” with his Mozartists, taking the greatest genius year by year, lands us in 1773 with the adolescent Mozart's first durable crowdpleaser, the pretty-brilliant motet for soprano and orchestra Exsultate, jubilate (last night was its 250th anniversary). The boy wonder still needs annual support from his elders, though, and as usual we got more than just a sampler of what else was going on musically in that year.