Mozart certainly knew how to bring out the ego in musicians and on Tuesday night at the South Bank there seemed to be just one ego too many in residence. Every seat was filled; for here was not only Mozart and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, but Roger Norrington and Robert Levin, too.
Both conductor and pianist approach Amadeus as though on speed: cracking tempos, a battery of accents and sharp rhythmic angles — and as many ornaments and decorations as possible.
Levin customarily directs from the keyboard: his body language is every bit as eloquent in cueing and coaxing as any baton. So it was strange — annoying, even — to see Norrington perched on a stool among the first desk of violins, flapping his hands in time to Levin’s and the orchestra’s music-making.
This was Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 24 in C minor and, although the scoring is busy, the bassoon hardly needed to be told when to chuckle in the opening movement, nor did the OAE’s exquisite woodwind soloists crave a cue in their little slow-movement set piece.
Levin could scarcely wait to respond to the players’ jaunty little march in the restless variations of the finale. He was already on hyperactive form, coiled to spring into action, so Norrington’s waving him in seemed as absurdly superfluous as his presence throughout this concerto.
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Levin and his fortepiano were left to their own devices in the Piano and Wind Quintet in E flat. And, although there should have been fewer problems of balance here with the fortepiano’s still, small voice, the quartet of soloists seemed ill at ease with Levin’s extrovert, even over- dominating characterisation of the music.
Norrington was back for the concluding Prague Symphony. Here, too, despite some top-notch playing from the band, Norrington’s almost caricatured conducting became a distraction. The performance was energised from within, and worked its magic despite, not because of, his direction.