(Conductor Vladimir Kern)Exciting and stimulating concert despite its sombre-sounding programme. (Review by Michael Green)
This opening concert of the summer season of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra had a programme that sounded rather sombre - the orchestra’s brochure labelled it Dancing with death - but the occasion turned out to be an exciting and stimulating one, with the Durban City Hall audience cheering two remarkable musical siblings from Russia.
The 35-year-old pianist Olga Kern has played here before and she was something of a sensation then. She still is. She is an international virtuoso of the first rank, with an immense keyboard technique. She is also probably the best-looking pianist on the circuit, a stunning blonde, as they say in the classics.
Her brother Vladimir Kern is a 34-year-old conductor who is making a big name internationally and who took the KZNPO through a taxing programme with a maximum of insight and a minimum of fuss.
The programme was mainly but not all Russian. It opened with Rachmaninov’s The Isle of the Dead, a skilfully orchestrated tone poem based on a famous and gloomy painting by the nineteenth century Swiss Artist Arnold Bocklin. This sort of music is not everybody’s cup of tea, but the orchestra, at its full strength of about 70 players, gave it a strong and convincing interpretation.
Vladimir Kern is an elegant, lean figure on the podium and his conducting style is restrained and controlled. I felt that he extracted very good results from the orchestra here and in the other items on the programme.
Then came a true virtuoso piece, Liszt’s Totentanz, Dance of Death. This is really a fantasy on the mediaeval Dies Irae theme, day of wrath. Olga Kern handled the formidably difficult piano part with high skills, and I particularly enjoyed her playing in the gentle arabesques which Lizst included as a contrast to the big bangy bits.
Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini was delivered by the orchestra with great effect. It is a splendid piece, a musical description of doomed lovers whirling in the eternal tempests of Dante’s Inferno. My only criticism of the playing is that in some passages the brass overpowered the strings, who were almost inaudible.
The concert ended with Rachmaninov’s well-known Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, 24 variations on a celebrated Caprice by Paganini for solo violin. This was without question the highlight of the evening. The variations are at different times brilliant, solemn, sentimental, whimsical, romantic. Olga Kern again displayed her great pianistic powers, not least in the delicate and humorous passages that adorn this work. And the famous 18th variation, that one that has become part of pop music, was played with great fervour and eloquence.
Pianist, conductor and orchestra were rewarded with an ovation from the audience at the end. - Michael Green
Posts
