London Mozart Players, Stephanie Childress and Isata Kenneh-Mason, Cadogan Hall, 26/6/21

Sorry, this is a bit of a grumble. Yes, I know these are difficult times and that we should be grateful for any live music happening anywhere, but this was still – by the recent standards of the Halle, CBSO and LSO – a remarkably short concert  – just over an hour’s music, Beethoven 2 and the first Mendelssohn Piano Concerto. And, I’m sorry to say, I don’t like the majority of Mendelssohn’s music. ‘Music flows from Mendelssohn like water from a public fountain’ said Wagner, somewhere, and while he might have had a particular animus about him, I can sort of see the point, though the Midsummer Night’s Dream music is wonderful and despite myself I do enjoy the violin concerto.  The hall wasn’t full, even by socially distanced standards and it all had a rather depressing feel. The LMP played well enough in the Beethoven, and had I not heard Tabita Berglund’s Beethoven two weeks earlier I might have been more excited, but I felt this was an under-characterised performance that didn’t do much for me.  The pianist in the Mendelssohn was Isata Kenneh-Mason, who I think is very special – I heard her in one of the Halle Orchestra’s live-streamed Winter concerts performing Beethoven’s 3^rd piano concerto and thought that was an excellent sensitive performance. Here in the Mendelssohn she introduced many little touches of colour, as well as offering some spectacularly nimble playing in the jolly (up to a point) last movement of the Mendelssohn. She was great, but the piano concerto didn’t really deserve her! (grumble over, and I might have been influenced by the fact that for some reason I was sitting at the extreme left of the stage at the front so could see really very little, next to over-prominent strings!)