FOM: IMPRESSIONISM AND EXPRESSIONISM

Large audience enjoys programme of largely unfamiliar modern music in the manner of a university lecture. (Review by Michael Green)

This latest offering from the Friends of Music at the Durban Jewish Centre this week was a mixture of a concert and a lecture. The title Impressionism and Expressionism referred to music by Claude Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern, a formidable group of composers functioning mainly in the 20th century. The performers were players from the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra plus the pianist Liezl-Maret Jacobs, and the spoken commentary was given by Christopher Cockburn.

It was, I think, quite a novel idea to present a programme of largely unfamiliar modern music in the manner of a university lecture. I myself would have preferred more music and less talk – the first hour was occupied almost equally by words and music, and the words could have been condensed into a written programme note - but a large audience seemed to enjoy this method. The commentary was certainly informative, with useful pointers to the background of the compositions performed.

Liezl-Maret opened the programme with two well-known items from Debussy’s first book of Preludes, and she was joined by the violinist Elena Kerimova for an eloquent performance of a famous and beautiful work, Debussy’s Clair de Lune, moonlight.

Liezl-Maret appeared in everything throughout the evening, a challenging task which she undertook with skill and aplomb.

Debussy was featured again in some rarely played works: a fine Rhapsody for clarinet and piano, a piano trio, and eight intriguing pieces for flute and piano entitled Bilitis. These were originally songs purportedly written by a woman in ancient Greece but were in fact the work of a French poet named Pierre Louys (1870-1925).

Short pieces by Schoenberg, Berg and Webern completed an unusual evening of music. The players, apart from those already mentioned, were Boris Kerimov (cello), Lisa Thom (flute) and David Cohen (clarinet), and the standard of performance was consistently high.

The Prelude Performers of the evening were two students from the UKZN’s opera school (OSCA): Nomalungelo Zubane (soprano) and Ndumiso Nyoka (tenor). Accompanied by Dana Hadjiev, they displayed good, confident voices in arias from Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. Too much vibrato from the soprano, though. - Michael Green

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