FRIENDS OF MUSIC: STANKO MADIC & PIETER JACOBS

Stanko Madic (violin) and Pieter Jacobs (piano) present concert for the connoisseurs. (Review by Michael Green)

The Friends of Music concert in the Durban Jewish Centre this week was one for the connoisseurs, outstanding playing in a programme of unusual interest. It is a pity that it was not better attended.

The opening Chaconne alone was worth a visit to the Jewish Centre. This is a famous composition for solo violin by Johann Sebastian Bach, one of the items in Bach’s second partita for violin, the partita being a suite of pieces. The chaconne is traditionally a stately dance, and this one is a fine and noble work in which Bach shows what magic he can conjure from one violin, without benefit of any accompaniment of any kind.

Stanko Madic is a 24-year-old violinist from Serbia, in the Balkans, between Hungary and Greece, and he gave a commanding performance of this exceptionally difficult work, which was written in 1720. After nearly 300 years it is as vigorous and challenging as ever, a marvel of intellectual power and ingenuity. Stanko Madic played brilliantly, producing a full-blooded tone and bringing out with great skill the various voices in the rich texture of Bach’s counterpoint.

For the rest of the evening he was joined by one of South Africa’s best pianists, Pieter Jacobs, who has wide experience in playing chamber music. Robert Schumann’s Sonata in A minor for violin and piano, Op. 105, is not a well-known work but it has plenty to commend it. The writing for both instruments is tuneful, vivid and expressive. The sonata was written only two or three years before Schumann’s final mental breakdown that led to his death in an institution in 1856, aged 46, and there are moments of agitation and anxiety in its outer movements. But I don’t think the sonata as a whole gives much indication of the tragedy that lay ahead, and the second movement is unassuming, whimsical and delightful. Both players presented the music in totally convincing fashion.

After the interval came Brahms’s Sonata for piano and violin in D minor, Op. 108. This is the third of Brahms’s three sonatas for violin and piano. It is the least known, but it is a fine work, typical of Brahms, with its big, broad themes, rhythmic emphasis and general air of strong emotions. The slow movement in particular shows the master at his most eloquent and expressive. Here the pianist, Pieter Jacobs, was heard in a rather more assertive role, and he excelled in carrying out the demands made on him. Stanko Madic played, as he had done earlier, with a maturity and poise that were remarkable in one so young. Another outstanding performance.

The duo ended their concert in lighter vein with a set of variations by the Polish composer Henryk Wieniawski (1835-1880), glittering and attractive.

The evening’s prelude performers, funded by the National Lottery, were Amazwi Amyoli, four singers whose main aim is to bring western classical music to black communities in South Africa. The singers are Edward Phiri (baritone), Wayne Mkhize (tenor), Mthunzi Nokubeka (baritone) and Lukhanyo Moyake (tenor) and they gave much pleasure in performing three items, including a song by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Funiculi Funicula, which many members of the audience had probably not heard for a long time. - Michael Green