The 2022 Mozart Days Festival will be held this weekend at the Culture Hall in Tel Aviv, and will be dedicated to the performance of the works of the genius Austrian composer with historical instruments (or exact replicas of them), ones that Mozart himself would have recognized.
The festival is held under the musical direction of pianist Zvi Maniker, who specializes in ancient keyboard instruments, and as part of it, 22 concerts and musical events will be held with the participation of dozens of leading singers, soloists and musicians from Israel and abroad. The highlight of the festival will be a unique performance of Mozart's famous Requiem, which will be played for the first time in Israel on historical instruments. Among the participants in the festival is the cellist Ira Gavol, one of the leading Israeli cellists in the world and a member of the Belgian ensemble "Il Garaldino", which specializes in playing historical instruments.
Playing Mozart on ancient instruments is not a new thing, but while 50 years ago such performances were on the fringes of music making, today they stand in the center of the arena.
"Something of the essence of Mozart's music is lost when it is played on modern instruments, just as in a performance of Shakespeare in Russian, for example, something is lost in translation," says Gavol in an interview from his home in Brussels.
According to him, "while Bach's music can be played beautifully on a modern piano, accordion and even electronic instruments, and it works great, in Mozart's music it is more problematic. His orchestration is much more defined, and the character and color of the instruments are really critical. The difference between a modern piano and a hammer piano of his time of Mozart is enormous, so much so that playing Mozart on a modern piano is actually a kind of arrangement. It can be an excellent arrangement, but it is still an arrangement."
Ira Gabul
He will play a sonata for violin - cello, photo: Alexandra Renska
The cello, Gboul's instrument, was a sort of "stepson" for Mozart, who wrote almost no solo works for him.
"In those years, composers wrote works especially for specific musicians, and it seems that there was no great cellist in Vienna at the time for whom Mozart could write works," explains Gavol.
"To this we can add that the instrument was then in its infancy, at least in terms of its virtuoso potential. But all this does not prevent me from arranging works by Mozart for cello myself. At the Engen Festival, for example, a sonata for violin and cello. Mozart's music lends itself to arrangements, and we really are not ashamed to invent Different and different arrangements".
Mozart's Requiem, his last work, will be played twice during the festival (Friday 5:30 p.m., Saturday 11:30 a.m., Zucker Hall).
The Requiem was left unfinished upon Mozart's death, and today it is customary to perform the version completed by Franz Zissmeier, Mozart's close student.
On the other hand, the festival will perform a modern completion of the Requiem, penned by the German musicologist Franz Meyer.
"I didn't know this version, and when I went through the notes for the first time a few days ago, I was really scared," recalls Gavol.
"I was missing the Lacrimosa movement (the last movement written by Mozart, which also remained unfinished). I called Zvi Manicker in a panic and told him: 'The Requiem ends too soon!'. Zvi explained that we would perform Mayer's alternative version. And the Lacrimosa is not missing," Gevoul reassures , "He just appears somewhere else."
You should also hear at the festival the excellent clarinet player Lorenzo Coppola (Italy), who will perform Mozart's clarinet concerto, and also the excellent flutist Jan der Wiene, who will play some of Mozart's flute quartets.
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