MOZART LIKED BIRDS. So quipped Maestro Brett Mitchell between the first and second movements of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 in A when some twit was a bit slow to turn off a mobile phone. (A concert is an opportunity to shut the rest of the world off for a while. Leave the shackles at home. Do you think we're really impressed that you're doing business during intermission?)

The concerto was the Philharmonic's 250th birthday offering for Mozart, and it was sandwiched between Shostakovich Centennial items the Festive Overture and the Symphony No. 5 in d. The Philharmonic previously performed the Fifth in 1992. (How many conductors and how many performers have rotated through since then?) The program notes describe the second movement as a "village dance gone wrong" possibly after "one drink too many" which is not bad: I envision a clapped-out boardwalk with a badly out-of-round carroussel. They also confirmed that the impression I have in the third movement of a procession of Orthodox monks at a funeral is accurate. Prior to the performance, Conductor Mitchell announced that the orchestra would use a slow tempo in the symphony's coda (there is some controversy over the metronome marks) because Shostakovich wrote in Testimony that the finale is "as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, 'Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing.'"

It is worth remembering exactly what genuine tyranny is.