Secret Passions is the title of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's new series of concerts, which runs from now until the end of May on London's South Bank. The subtitle - Alter Egos and Personal Obsessions - is even more eye-catchingly dramatic, though quite what this ballyhoo signifies is something of a mystery. The emphasis is seemingly on an impressive line-up of soloists performing works which hitherto haven't formed a notable part of their repertoires.
The opening concert featured the Russian-born violinist Viktoria Mullova playing and directing two Mozart concertos. We used not to associate Mullova with Mozart. After this, one suspects, her name will be firmly linked to his.
An uncompromising artist, bent on chiselling out the dramatic content of a work rather than indulging in glitzy virtuosity, Mullova is as alluring to watch as she is to hear. She swept on looking like some goddess of antiquity (Venus with a violin, perhaps) and proceeded to sculpt the phrases of the Third Concerto with a combination of seraphic radiance and humane beauty. The Third is an essentially operatic work in which the soloist spins out a succession of wordless arias, occasionally joining the orchestra in some wryly funny ensembles that pre-empt The Marriage of Figaro. In the slow movement, Mullova is an angelic diva and the long, tear-inducing melody seems disconnected from the earth, occasionally swooping down to touch it.
In the Fourth Concerto, she's very different. It opens in territory which suggests imperial formality, its rigidity relentlessly undercut until the work ends in the Dionysian swirl of a jubilant waltz. Galvanising the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment into action with an imperious shrug of her shoulders, Mullova is more aggressive here, an Orphic figure whose playing seems to quell the orchestra into rapt submission. The opening flares upwards in a brief blaze of anger. The double-stopped cadenza of the slow movement is inherently bucolic, as if the violinist is finally warming up to lead that last great dance. Mullova is astonishing playing this music, and the orchestra are pretty damn fine, too.
When Mullova was absent from the platform they were put through their paces by Catherine Mackintosh, directing from the leader's chair. Salieri's overture to La Scuola De' Gelosi burbled with pleasurable glee. Haydn's Passione Symphony is a work which rewrites almost every rule in the musical book in the course of its intense meditation on the Crucifixion. It's rarely been played with such searing density and tragic grandeur as it was on this occasion.
