FOUR HANDS AT THE PIANO

An evening to please Franz Liszt. (Review by JJ Holloway)

As one who has long regarded the concert programming in Durban as somewhat conservative, I was delighted by both the choice, and the performance, of the major works at Tuesday night’s concert presented by Friends of Music. Indeed, my feeling is that the concert would also have delighted the major proponent of the so-called ‘new music’ in the 19th century, Franz Liszt - including the spirited rendition of three jazz items at the start by the Prelude Performers from the Durban Music School and the KZN Youth Wind Band.

The infectious enthusiasm of this group of brass instrument players and their timpanist held our attention until the moments of farewell when, player by player, each ceased to blow his instrument and left the stage to the drummer to beat the concluding notes. Actually, this conclusion was not quite original, but in the tradition of the great symphonic master, Joseph Haydn, who ends his Symphony no. 45 in F sharp minor of 1772, subtitled The Farewell, with an instruction to each member of the orchestra to snuff out the candle of his music stand, and leave the stage one by one, the remainder playing on until complete silence reigns!

The main works of the evening were three large-scale compositions for piano (two for two hands, one for four hands), performed by the English pianist James Redfern, and the Romanian-South African Laura Pauna, who proved to be an excellent combination of outstanding talent, ideally suited to the chosen works. The concert opened with James Redfern’s rendition of the very demanding Transcendental Etude no. 5 in B-flat of 1851 (subtitledfeux follets – Will o’ the Wisp - from a set of 12 études) by Franz Liszt, a work of tremendous dynamic range and contrasts, apparently structureless and conforming to no earlier musical tradition. Through no exercise of the imagination does it seem possible to trace musical antecedents to this composition, as Liszt appears to owe nothing to the great tradition of European masters from before his time –‘new music’ in the true sense of the word!

The Rhapsodie Espagnole of Maurice Ravel came about perhaps through the childhood influence of the composer’s Basque mother, who used to sing him songs of her native land. The version for four hands was composed rapidly in 1907, before the better-known orchestral composition, which was only completed in the next year. The French flavour of the delicate opening Prelude à la Nuit (Prelude to the Night) is followed by three rhythmic sections in the tradition of Spanish melodies, Malaguena, Habanera and Feria, which are extraordinary in being both unmistakeably ‘Spanish’ and yet uniquely ‘Ravel’ at the same time. This work requires both metronomic precision in the timing of the two pianists, and exact dynamic ‘balance’ between the four hands, requirements which were fully met in last night’s performance – probably the best duet I have yet been fortunate to hear.

Perhaps the pièce de résistance of the concert was the exciting Sonata for Piano by the Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian, a mature work in three movements which appeared only in 1961, some 35 years after his first piano composition. While observing a traditional three-movement sonata form (allegro, andante, presto), none of the ingredients adhered to older tradition. The first and last movements could also have been subtitled con fuoco, demanding extraordinary precision at speed of the performer (Laura Pauna). Listening set my mind back to the musical accompaniment of chase scenes from the old silent movies of Charlie Chaplin! Perhaps Khachaturian had also enjoyed these films?

Unfortunately, the encore, the fourth of a set of six impromptus by Robert Schumann entitled Bilder aus Osten (Pictures from the East, Op. 66, for four hands), while beautifully played, fell to my mind below the musical level set by the redoubtable trio of Liszt, Ravel and Khachaturian. The slow gavotte-like music suggested nothing oriental to me, but the accompaniment to a stately Scottish strathspey! However, it brought me down from the ‘heights’ of experimentation to the more usual programming at classical recitals. – JJ Holloway

Friends of Music is indebted to the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund for their support.