FOM CONCERT: SPENCER MYER

Brilliant player presents programme that was wide-ranging and refreshingly off the beaten trtack. (Review by Michael Green)

The American pianist Spencer Myer, who is in his early thirties, has visited South Africa several times in recent years and has become a much admired figure on the musical scene here.

Understandably so. He is a brilliant player and he has an engaging, friendly personality, as he showed once again in a recital given for the Friends of Music at the Durban Jewish Centre. He presented a programme that was wide-ranging and refreshingly off the beaten track, with only one item that could really be described as a “popular classic”.

He opened with the Suite No. 2 in F major by Handel. I can’t recall when I last heard Handel played at a piano recital, and listening to this fine performance of lovely music made me wonder why this great master is so neglected by pianists. This suite is a four-movement work, two fast, two slow, and Spencer Myer captured admirably its varied moods.

A most interesting work followed, one that was probably new to all but maybe two or three members of the audience (these being pianists themselves). The curiously named Sonata 1.X.1905, From the Street, by the Czech composer Leos Janacek, was composed in 1905, after a student demonstration in the streets of Brno ended with a young man being bayoneted by Austrian troops. Janacek was enraged by the incident, and this two-movement sonata was the result.

It is an impressive and fascinating work. As Spencer Myer, speaking audibly and unpretentiously from the stage, pointed out, Janacek’s music combines to some degree the romanticism of the end of the nineteenth century and the dissonances of the beginning of the twentieth. This brief sonata is powerful and highly distinctive, and it was played with great skill and authority.

Then came the one really familiar item, Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No 2 (incidentally, there are only two sonatas in Op. 27, not three, as stated in the otherwise excellent programme notes). The pianist gave the first movement, the “Moonlight”, with excellent control of its subtle dynamics, and the final movement was played at high speed but with every note clearly articulated.

Spencer Myer went to the treasure house of Schumann’s piano music for his next item, Waldscenen, Op. 82. This rather rarely-played set of eight “Forest Scenes” is a late work and is full of interest. Only one piece, Vogel als Prophet (The Prophet Bird) is quite well known, and this was beautifully played, as were the other two gentle, poetic items in the set, Einsame Blumen (Solitary Flowers) and Abschied (Farewell).

Finally the pianist gave a resplendent virtuoso performance of what he described from the stage as “some of my favourite music in the world”: two numbers from Granados’s six-movement suite Goyescas, inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya. He played El amor y la muerte (Love and Death) and Los Requiebros (Endearments in the programme but also sometimes translated as Flattery and Compliments). These are gorgeous pieces, especially the latter, full of Spanish fire and opulent harmonies.

The pianist delivered them with power and passion and was rewarded with an ovation from the delighted audience. In response he gave two encores, one of them a quick-fire Witches’ Dance by his American compatriot Edward MacDowell. Altogether a recital to remember.

The prelude performer of the evening, funded by the National Lottery, was the young Romanian-born violinist Laura Osorhean, daughter of two players in the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra. She showed considerable skills and seems to have a bright future as a musician. - Michael Green