DANCING WITH DEATH

Opening concert of KZNPO World Symphony season.

Titled Dancing with Death, the opening concert of the KZN Philharmonic Summer Season brings to life four classic musical ventures into the hereafter. The Kern-sibling duo of Vladimir Kern (conductor) and Olga Kern (piano) will guide audiences through a rich, thematically linked programme of symphonic poems and innovative variation sets.

Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead is a sober rumination on Arnold Böcklin’s haunting image of a forlorn island. The gloom is supplanted by the Mephistophelean antics of Liszt’s groundbreaking Totentanz for piano and orchestra, full of macabre transformations of the medieval plainchant “Dies irae”. The second half begins with Tchaikovsky’s evocative tone poem, Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32 about the plight of Dante’s doomed lovers in the first circle of Hell. The concert concludes with Rachmaninoff’s devilishly playful variations on the famous 24th Caprice of the legendary violinist Niccolò Paganini.

Conductor Vladimir and acclaimed pianist Olga Kern have collaborated extensively, with a focus on the music of their Russian forebear, Rachmaninoff. They have a special relationship with South Africa, having toured here several times.

The concert takes place on February 10 February at 19h30 in the Durban City Hall. Booking is at Computicket. A pre-concert lecture will be held in the Royal Hotel at 18h15. For more information click on the advert at the top of this page.