Exceptional performance from soloist at second concert of KZNPO spring season. (Review by Michael Green)
Two intensely patriotic composers, Frederic Chopin of Poland and Antonin Dvorak of Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), provided the music for this most enjoyable concert in the Durban City Hall, the second of the spring season of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra.
The conductor was again the accomplished Victor Yampolsky, who was born in Russia and who has lived in the United States for many years. The soloist was the pianist Vassily Primakov, who was born in Moscow 31 years ago and who now spends much of his time in America.
Vassily Primakov had scored a great success with a Chopin programme for the Friends of Music a week earlier, and he repeated the achievement in his appearance with the orchestra. He played Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, written when the composer was only 19 (it is actually the first of Chopin’s two concertos but is called No. 2 because it was published second).
Vassily Primakov is a superb player. Tall and lean, he has a calm demeanour at the piano and he is in total command of his instrument. He played Chopin’s glittering virtuoso passages with brilliance but with the bright, light touch that was surely what the composer wanted. And in the slow movement, the celebrated Larghetto, his cantabile tone was lovely to hear. He has the ultimate quality of a good pianist, the ability to convey quiet sounds to the far reaches of a big hall, and the audience seemed to be entranced as he did just that in the concerto’s many lyrical passages.
It was an exceptional performance. In response to prolonged applause the pianist gave an encore, one of the finest and most eloquent of Rachmaninov’s many preludes, Op. 23 No. 6 in E flat major.
The concert opened with a rarity, the Bajka overture by the nineteenth century Polish composer Stanislaw Moniuszko, who was very popular in his time and in his own country. It was a pleasant, deftly scored piece with some attractive tunes.
The main work of the evening was Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7 in D minor. This is more serious, intense and turbulent that many of this composer’s works. Conducting without a score, Victor Yampolsky guided the players through the symphony’s varied moods and many subtleties. Dvorak gives virtually every player in the orchestra some opportunity to shine, and the KZNPO responded with a splendid performance. In particular, the woodwind and the brass provided many memorable moments.
The symphony’s tremendous ending, overpowering sound with a triumphant shift from D minor to D major, was followed by a well-merited ovation from an excited audience. - Michael Green
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