Barnabas Kelemen gives brilliant performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor. (Review by Michael Green)
Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor is everybody’s favourite, and at the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert, the Durban City Hall audience was given a brilliant performance of this familiar work.
The soloist with the KZNPO was Barnabas Kelemen, a young Hungarian violinist who has established a formidable reputation with performances in many parts of the world.
As we heard the first strains of the Mendelssohn concerto I thought the violin tone was a bit subdued, but this feeling was rapidly dispelled as the soloist swung into his stride. Barnabas Kelemen is a fairly flamboyant type of player, with quite a range of facial expressions, but there is no doubting his high skills and musical commitment.
This is a virtuoso as well as a lyrical concerto, and he revelled in the many sparkling passages, especially in the final movement. In the slow movement, which is the heart and soul of this concerto, he produced a sweet, clear, penetrating tone. Memorable playing, with the orchestra in fine form under the baton of the visiting Israeli conductor Omri Hadari.
It was all much to the taste of the audience, who responded at the end with a foot-stamping ovation. For an encore the violinist played a piece by Paganini, very difficult, spectacular, and of little musical value, in my opinion. The audience loved it.
The concert opened with an eloquent account of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, written 70 years ago as a movement for a string quartet. Barber, an American, died in 1981 at the age of 71. He was a prolific composer --- opera, ballet, concertos, piano pieces, chamber music --- but this Adagio for Strings is sui generis, one of a kind, unique. Its solemn, emotional, repetitive phrases have captured the imagination of audiences for decades, and the piece was given a most eloquent performance by the strings of the KZNPO.
The programme was completed with another familiar work, Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Omri Hadari, the conductor, gave a pre-concert lecture about this masterwork, which still has some mysterious aspects more than a century after it was written. It was clear from the lecture that Mr Hadari has spent years studying this composition and thinking about it, and that sense of dedication was revealed at the concert itself. He gave a meticulous, perceptive interpretation of the music, and the orchestra responded splendidly. - Michael Green
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