CLASSICAL NOTES

Winter music and pianos in KZN (by William Charlton-Perkins)

The Winter Season in the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2009 World Symphony Series runs on Thursday evenings in the Durban City Hall from May 21 to July 2. (There will be no symphony concert on June 4 as during that week the Orchestra is presenting the ever-popular Starlight Pop Opera concert sponsored by FNB). The six-week concert season features an exciting mix of top international guest soloists and conductors, along with leading South African musicians.

Arjan Tien from the Netherlands, who appears for the 11th consecutive year with the orchestra, conducts the first two concerts of the season. His programme on May 21 opens with Grieg’s much-loved Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, followed by his Piano Concerto in A Minor. This concert warhorse provides the ideal vehicle for popular Cape Town based virtuoso Francois du Toit, who is replacing Lukás Vondrácek, as the first soloist of the season. Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 concludes the evening’s fare.

Tien’s programme on May 28 comprises Smetana’s exhilarating Bartered Bride Overture, Dvořák’s tempestuous Cello Concerto (another notable debut, featuring the acclaimed cellist Suren Bagratuni), and Brahms’ atmospheric Symphony No. 2.

Popular US maestro Leslie B Dunner returns to the KZNPO podium on June 11 for the first of two concerts this season. He opens with Haydn’s Surprise Symphony No 94, as a fitting bicentennial salute to the great Austrian composer’s death in 1809. Virtuoso pianist Boris Giltburg also returns to take the solo spot in Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2. The KZNPO concludes its programme with a performance of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8.

More Haydn opens the June 18 concert, with a performance of his Symphony no 81. Juilliard graduate Bryan Wallick, a gold medallist of the Vladimir Horowitz International Piano Competition, debuts with Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in the second half of the evening’s programme.

Victor Yampolsky returns for the final two concerts of the season. His June 25 programme stars South African violinist Zanta Hofmeyr, another Juilliard graduate, performing Britten’s Violin Concerto No 1. The evening opens and closes with two highly romantic works, Weber’s Euryanthe Overture and Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 in D minor.

Glazunov’s Valse de Concert no. 2 opens Yampolsky’s second programme. This showcases Durban’s own star pianist, Andrew Warburton, in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s magnificent Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major. Sibelius’ Symphony No 1 provides a fitting finale to the season.

Safe and subsidised parking is available at the Royal Hotel on concert nights. The pre-concert talks in association with Durban’s Friends of Music start at 18h15 in the Royal Hotel, with the concert following at 19h30. Bookings are open through Computicket on 083 915 8000. For more information, or to subscribe to the season, call 031-369 9404, 031 369 9498 or log onto www.kznpo.co.za.

The adage held by some keyboard connoisseurs, that a good piano is a new piano may sound simplistic, but given the fact that an average acoustic concert grand comprises somewhere between eight and ten thousand moveable parts, the idea certainly bears thinking about.

Friends of Music’s recently announced fundraising drive to acquire a much-needed new grand piano for its recitals at the Durban Jewish Club has been lauded by several readers. It is good to report here that FOM’s Piano Fund has received a significant head-start from the Beare Foundation with a grant of R50 000, reports FOM chairperson, Dr Vera Dubin.

Dubin encourages potential donors to contribute any amount however small. Donations are can be deposited electronically into Friends of Music’s cheque account (Nedbank, account number 1301 040479), or cheques may be posted to Friends of Music, PO Box 51063, Musgrave 4062.

Unlike wind or string players who have their own instruments whenever they perform, pianists are expected to attune themselves to any number of unknown factors lurking behind the keyboards of instruments they encounter from one performance to the next. So when it comes to the performance itself, a pianist, however accomplished, is only as good as the instrument at his or her disposal.

For this reason, celebrated virtuosi such as Horowitz and Michelangeli were known to insist on playing their own pianos. Pietermaritzburg concert pianist Christopher Duigan, himself a keen piano aficionado, says he too tries to play one of his own instruments wherever and whenever he can.

Duigan has offered to help give fundraising recitals on behalf of Friends of Music’s piano fund. He has proffered some sound advice with regard to possible choices of instrument and their price ranges. These stretch from a Kawai somewhere in the region of R270,000 to a Steinway, costing somewhere around R1,400.000.

Duigan performed for Friends of Music last Tuesday (May 19) as part of the Kerimov Trio, appearing alongside violinist Elena Kerimova and cellist Boris Kerimov. The Trio, who replaced a previously announced artist, played piano trios by Mozart and Beethoven, as well as popular items by Bach-Gounod, Schubert, Caccini, Albinoni, Piazolla and Bruch. – William Charlton-Perkins