Boos for Benjy

The program notes read like a travel brochure: "Let us walk through Mozart's garden . . . We enter by an unassuming little gate: the Symphony in D [K.84] of the 14-year-old Mozart." The guide on this all-Mozart stroll last week was Benjamin Britten, 37, one of Britain's most highly rated composers (Peter Grimes). But the Holland Festival audience in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw was in for a grievous disappointment: not only did Benjy stray off the path; he tromped on the flowers.

A bobbing Britten conducted the nervous, unsettled Dutch Broadcast Chamber Orchestra through an erratic performance of the symphony. Next, Benjy helped stagehands trundle a piano to the front while fidgety fiddlers scraped their chairs out of the way. As soloist-conductor in the Piano Concerto in G (K.453), Britten continued to have a difficult time. Next came the Adagio and Rondo for glashar-monica, flute, oboe, viola and cello. For the glasharmonica (an 18th Century version of musical glasses), Britten substituted--and played--the celesta, beating time with his head when his hands were on the keys. Two short numbers for violin and orchestra followed; Britten conducted, but did not play. The concert concluded with Britten's own arrangement of a group of country dances. An unenthusiastic audience clapped politely, then filed quietly out of the hall.

Next day, the critical brickbats flew from all angles: granted, Britten would have done better conducting the chamber orchestra of the English Opera Group, as originally scheduled,*but that was a poor excuse for failing to do well by Mozart. Wrote the Algemeen Handelsblad: "If Benjamin Britten belongs to the elect, yesterday he was degraded to the level of the many. It was an insipid, listless and pitiful concert . . . the public was faced with a difficult problem: cool reception or forced applause." The Nieuwe Rotterdamse C our ant was slightly more polite: "A quiet, genial evening for anyone who had left exacting criticism at home."

Unshaken, Britten gave a repeat performance in The Hague the second night, got a repeat performance from the critics. Back in London at week's end, Conductor Britten admitted that the garden frolic had flopped. As for the critics: "I don't read criticism ever. I wouldn't listen to what the critics say. Why should I read what they write?"

*The orchestra's planned appearance was canceled when the Dutch festival officials were unable to provide funds for the trip. Some of the group's members did come over later, however, and gave one morning concert (which Britten did not conduct).

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