DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@ STARBULLETIN.COM
Bastiaan Blomhart conducts a practice session at the Musician's Union building.
Mozart mystery The burning question for Honolulu's classical music community this weekend is: Is it Mozart or not?
to play in isles
By Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.comThe audience at the Diamond Head Theatre tomorrow night will decide for themselves when Chamber Music Hawaii presents a wind octet version of the overture and seven movements from the opera "The Abduction from the Seraglio" that may -- or may not -- be a Mozart original.
One scholar who will state his case that it is, in fact, the real deal is Dr. Bastiaan Blomhert. He's flown in from Amsterdam in the Netherlands to conduct this Hawaii premiere concert performance. Blomhert claims to have rediscovered this lost Mozart arrangement in the mid-1980s and has published a book revealing the music's origin, and has a documentary film in the works.
Clarinetist Jim Moffitt and well-known Mozart enthusiast and KHON news anchor Joe Moore have been talking about doing this concert with Blomhert ever since the two worked on premiering "The Grand Partita" wind symphony back in 1988.
"This is also Chamber Music Hawaii's 20th anniversary fund-raiser," Moffitt said, "and the piece itself has been part of a big, international music controversy."
ACCORDING TO Moffitt, the disputed piece dates to a time, in northern Europe from the 1780s to 1830s, when ceremonial and fanfare instrumental pieces performed by ensembles like the wind octet moved out of taverns and into the sumptuous surroundings of nobility. Ensembles would perform the latest music from operas and ballets written by the composers of the day as elegant background music for dinners and banquets.
"Mozart wrote letters to his father during the time he was writing 'The Abduction' in Germany, as well as a time of great personal upheaval," Moffitt said. The letter that Blomhert uses as part of his argument is one in which Mozart writes that he "must hurry up and make the transcription for wind instruments before some other transcriber makes a profit off of it." (Moore will be reading from this correspondence between each musical movement of the concert.)
And that's where the dispute lies -- is the transcription written by Mozart, or is it a forgery?
"According to Dr. Blomhert's thesis, this had to be Mozart, because no one else had access to his piece," Moffitt said. "Critics of his say that things like the harmonic progression or the keys are wrong for the composer. The arguments have gotten pretty intensive at times."
As for Moffitt, he remains diplomatically undecided. "It's hard to know really if this is authentic or not. It is a unique piece for Mozart, and there might be some copyist errors in the piece, since this is based on an arrangement not written in Mozart's hand.
"Still, it is music by Mozart, so it should make for an enjoyable evening of music," he said.
Where: Diamond Head Theatre 'Most Likely Mozart?'
Hawaii premiere
When: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow
Tickets: $15 and $35
Call: 524-0815, Ext. 245
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