(Pic: Conductor Yasuo Shinozaki)
Orchestra responds well to Yasuo Shinozaki’s energetic direction and Alexej Gorlatch gives beautiful performance of Mozart concerto. (Review by Michael Green)
The magic of Mozart drew a good-sized audience to this concert given by the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of the Japanese conductor Yasuo Shinozaki.
The soloist was the Ukrainian pianist Alexej Gorlatch, who had created a great impression at his Friends of Music recital earlier in the week. His admirers were not disappointed. He gave a beautiful performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 18 in B flat major, named the Paradis because it was supposedly written for a 25-year-old blind pianist Maria Theresia Paradis (some modern scholars question this and point out that Mozart himself, not Paradis, gave the first performance in 1784).
No matter, it is a delectable work - not, I think, one of Mozart’s most famous compositions, but outstanding in its constant flow of melody, rich and varied even by Mozart’s standards.
Alexej Gorlatch is a remarkable figure on the concert platform. He is slender and boyish and looks even younger than his 20 or 21 years (he was born in 1988 in Kiev). He has a cherubic countenance, and there was something heart-catching in the sight of this young man giving so dedicated and accomplished a performance of a composer who was himself a virtuoso at that age. His articulation of the rapid keyboard passages was crystal clear, and he showed an impressive grasp of the tonal dynamics and contrasts.
Yasuo Shinozaki and the orchestra were admirable partners in this performance. The orchestra was reduced to Mozartian proportions - 30 strings, plus two oboes, two bassoons, two horns and a flute - but the players produced a good volume of sound, and the balance with the soloist was first-rate.
The concert opened with The Magic Flute overture and ended with a great masterwork, the “Jupiter” Symphony No. 41 in C major.
Here again the orchestra was in splendid form. Yasuo Shinozaki seems to have established a good rapport with the players and they responded well to his energetic direction. The balance of the instruments is particularly important in performing Mozart’s music, so that the listener can follow the various strands of melody, and on this occasion it was excellent, especially in the sublime slow movement.
Altogether an evening of lovely music. - Michael Green
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