(Anastasya Terenkova)Outstanding recital from performers of superior quality. (Review by Michael Green)
This was an outstanding recital. From the first sombre phrases of Faure’s Elegie it was clear to the Friends of Music audience in the Durban Jewish Centre that we were listening to performers of superior quality, and the evening turned out to be one of constant pleasure.
Georgi Anichenko is from Belarus, which is between Russia and Poland, and Anastasya Terenkova was born in Moscow. They are both young, 25 and 30, tall, slender and good-looking, and they play with an unaffected intensity and skill that captivate the listener. Georgi Anichenko produces a rich, accurate tone from his cello, and Anastasya Terenkova is obviously a splendid pianist. Playing together they demonstrated an excellent balance and clarity.
They presented a programme of French and Russian music, most of it unfamiliar to most people in the audience. It was, however, all first-rate music with no dull moments. They began the evening with three pieces by Gabriel Faure, a somewhat underrated and underplayed French master: the Elegie, Sicilienne (this one quite well-known) and Apres un reve, After a Dream, an arrangement of one of Faure’s finest songs.
After this came Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, written in 1948. This Frenchman was one of the most distinctive of the moderns, a mixture of seriousness and merriment, qualities both amply illustrated in this work. It was delightful, parts of it reminiscent of his concerto for two pianos, and it was played with great dash and panache.
Then came the Russians: first Prokofiev, represented by his Five Melodies, Op. 35a, originally written for voice and piano and transcribed for cello and piano by the British cellist Raphael Wallfisch. The mood of these pieces ranges from dreamy to playful, and the performers brought out every detail with high accomplishment. Shostakovich’s 1934 Sonata for Cello and Piano is a big work with driving rhythms and some attractive melodies. The four movements are widely contrasted, and there was much to admire in the performance. Anastasya’s brilliant piano playing in particular caught the ear and eye, with her partner displaying great eloquence on the cello.
In response to prolonged applause they gave an encore, an arrangement of Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, originally written as a wordless song. Beautiful music, beautifully played.
The Prelude Performers of the evening, funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, were two Japanese girls, sisters, who are pupils at Crawford College and violin students of Isaac Melamed. The younger, Emiri Nishii, is eight years old and is the smallest violinist I have ever seen. Calm, poised and doll-like, she showed astonishing maturity in playing a sonata by the 17th century Italian composer Arcangelo Corelli. David Smith provided a sympathetic accompaniment.
Her 12-year-old sister, Erina Nishii, played a movement from a sonata by Bach for unaccompanied violin. Both these children performed sophisticated music with insight and skill, the reward, I suspect, of long hours of hard practice. The people of the east understand the value of work. - Michael Green
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