Kensho Watanabe returns to lead the Philadelphia Orchestra, post Thanksgiving and fire alarms

What does Mozart sound like after a fire evacuation at the Kimmel Center? The Sunday afternoon Philadelphia Orchestra audience found out when, seconds before the start time for an all-Mozart program, a fire alarm forced the evacuation of Verizon Hall. The alarm, as it turned out, was tripped in the catering area. It warranted a single fire truck.

“Somebody doesn’t like Mozart,” quipped Matías Tarnopolsky, president and CEO of the orchestra, 40 minutes later on stage when musicians and audience were reassembled.

And the concert? Polite, it was not.

Unlike some performances of Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 36 (“Linz”) and 40, sonorities were imposing, clean and focused. More direct than aristocratic. Those qualities were probably in the cards anyway from conductor Kensho Watanabe, the much-respected assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 2016-2019.

But interruptions have a way of focusing performances more than ever. The audience was so appreciative that between-movements applause erupted. Under the circumstances, why not?

Charlotte Blake Alston was on hand between the symphonies to quote from Mozart’s letters about what was happening in his life when writing them. Mozart’s well-documented financial problems during the edgy, forward-looking Symphony No. 40 were exacerbated by an economic recession. What Alston discussed were the deaths of his children. Mozart kept composing. That was what he did. Stopping wasn’t an option. Both symphonies under Watanabe showed their most modern side to the audience. The reduced contingent of 50 to 60 musicians is still larger than what was typical in Mozart’s time. Thus, you weren’t going to hear the kind of performance where the tiniest details contribute to the witty symphonic conversation of the Linz symphony.

But what Watanabe projected was the breathtaking ingenuity of the music, often by drawing richly colored blends from the winds and brass that gave the Symphony No. 40 almost an explosive quality. The minuet felt like a miniature concerto for orchestra with different sections popping out of the texture in with hair-trigger precision.