FOM: JEROME PERNOO & JEROME DUCROS

Friends of Music presents connoisseur’s programme with Jerome Pernoo (cello) and Jerome Ducros (piano). (Review by Michael Green)

Durban audiences are old friends and admirers of the two Jeromes, who have visited this city several times over the past ten years or so. Jerome Pernoo is a cellist of the first rank and Jerome Ducros is likewise a pianist of high distinction. They are both French and in their thirties. They have established international careers as soloists, but they are probably best known as a duo. They have played together for 15 years, and they add to their individual talents a complete sense of partnership and mutual understanding which is obvious in their performances.

For this recital for the Friends of Music at the Durban Jewish Centre, they chose a programme of splendid compositions by Beethoven and Brahms, with a tango by the twentieth century Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla added for good measure.

It was a connoisseur’s programme and it was fitting that the audience should be the biggest at any Friends of Music concert that I can recall. About 200 people attended, the number having been boosted by the presence of 84 members of a German youth orchestra who are visiting Durban for a week. Aged 12 to 29, they come from Goppingen, a town near Stuttgart in southern Germany. These young people must have been impressed by the fact that Durban could stage a musical event of this quality.

Jerome Pernoo and Jerome Ducros have always been outstanding performers but it seemed to me, and to some others in the audience, that they are even better now than they were before. They make an interesting contrast in styles: Jerome Pernoo rather flamboyant, carrying his listeners/viewers with him as he makes music; Jerome Ducros more restrained, but a virtuoso pianist capable of spectacular deeds at the keyboard.

They opened with Beethoven’s fine Variations on a Theme from Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabeus. The tune, See the conquering hero comes, is well known; it is used, among other things, as a hymn in the Anglican Church. Beethoven’s 12 variations, composed in 1796, are lovely, and they were played with great skill and affection by the Jeromes.

Big Beethoven followed: the cello sonata in D major, Op. 102, No. 2. This is an advanced kind of work, especially the contrapuntal final movement. The whole sonata is strongly rhythmical and forward-looking in its themes and construction. Excellent playing brought out its many subtleties. Perhaps it is worth emphasising that in all these works the pianist is in no sense an accompanist; he is an equal partner with the cellist.

And the piano parts were taxing indeed, as was vividly illustrated in the Grand Tango by Astor Piazzolla. Jerome Ducros bounded all over the keyboard with great vigour and accuracy, while Jerome Pernoo extracted a true Latin verve from his cello part. This was a brilliant, tremendously exciting performance, and it was received by the audience with extreme enthusiasm.

Finally, Brahms’s cello sonata No 2 in F major, Op. 99, produced a very different type of music. Brahms wrote this work in 1886 while holidaying in Switzerland, and it reflects a rather happy frame of mind, tinged with mild romanticism. The scoring is masterly, especially in the use of pizzicato by the cellist. So was the playing.

The prelude performers of the evening, funded by the National Lottery, were four classical saxophone players who are based in France and call themselves the Quatuor Connection, quatuor meaning quartet. They are Cecile Dubois, Paul Richard, Maxine Matthews and Valerie Houssier. Their music was delightful. They played a movement from a Haydn string quartet, with nimble fingers and impeccable timing, and a typically agreeable piece by Piazzolla.

They gave much pleasure. The saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian, in 1846. I couldn’t help wondering what Haydn, who died in 1809, would have thought about this version of one of his string quartets. He was a balanced, good-humoured man, and he would probably have been pleased. - Michael Green