(Joanna Frankel)Arjan Tien and the orchestra in splendid form in Richard Strauss work. (Review by Michael Green)
A programme consisting mainly of avant-garde 20th century music drew a much reduced audience to the Durban City Hall for this concert given by the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra.
The main item was Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, written in 1935, probably his best-known composition and still sounding very strange to all but the most musically educated ears.
Much of it is harsh and dissonant, although towards the end the composer does introduce, of all things, a hymn tune by Johann Sebastian Bach, and the music assumes a more mellow quality.
The performance was excellent. The solo violinist, for the second week running, was the gifted Joanna Frankel, an American member of the orchestra, and she played her difficult part with great passion and commitment. Likewise the conductor, Arjan Tien from Holland. He is a vigorous and enthusiastic type of person, and a perfectionist and under his direction, the orchestra produced some vivid and brilliant sounds.
The concert opened with a Passacaglia by Anton Webern (1883-1945) who, like Berg, was a follower of Arnold Schoenberg’s 12-tone method of composition. A passacaglia, originally a dance in 18th century Italy, is a set of variations over a repeated bass pattern. Webern’s version is one of his early works, not as strident as some of his later compositions and not too difficult to follow.
After the interval came an elegant and attractive Intermezzo for strings, written in 1900 by Franz Schreker, and then, in complete contrast, the orchestra played Richard Strauss’s Tod und Verklarung, Death and Transfiguration, written in 1889. This musical picture of a man on his deathbed, ruminating about his life, is a rather gloomy concept but its brilliant orchestration and lovely melodies do transfigure it, so to speak. Arjan Tien and the orchestra were in splendid form, especially in the beautiful, glowing finale.
Three of the four composers on the programme were Austrian (Strauss, who was not related to the Viennese Strausses, was German). One member of the audience was a distinguished lawyer who is not a regular concert-goer. Asked why he had come, he replied that he understood it was an evening of Austrian music. He may have been surprised at what he heard. - Michael Green
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