At the Mostly Mozart Festival

The Times reports that Osmo Vanksa, besides conducting at Mostly Mozart, is playing clarinet in a couple of pieces. Bravo to him, I say.

He is also conducting the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, with Kari Kriikku as the soloist.

I'll tell you, if I were programming this year's MMF, and there was a certain emphasis on Finns as both performers and composers, and I had Kari Kriikku handy, I wouldn't have him playing the Mozart. I'd program Magnus Lindberg's fabulous Clarinet Concerto, which has been spectacularly recorded by Kriikku, with Sakari Oramo at the helm. Yeah, Mostly Mozart, but why the Spectacularly Overexposed rather than the Spectacular?

(Speaking of Finns, wish I could be at this program at the Kaplan Penthouse.)