(Inon Barnatan)
A privilege
to listen to this performance. (Review by Michael Green)
Inon Barnatan, born in Tel Aviv 33 years
ago, has achieved a big international reputation since he moved to New York in
2006, and listening to him in Durban it was easy to hear why.
Playing for the Friends of Music at the
Durban Jewish Centre, he showed that he is not only a virtuoso with an impeccable
technique but that he is also a sensitive and poetic interpreter of the music
he presents. He is also an engaging and unpretentious personality. His choice
of programme - Debussy, Mendelssohn, Ravel and Schubert - revealed his temperament. This was music for the
connoisseur, difficult and taxing but not empty showmanship.
He opened
with Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque,
four pieces written about 1890, when the composer was a young man. One of them,
Clair de Lune, Moonlight, is very
famous. The others are seldom played. They
are delightful and they were performed by Inon Barnatan with delicacy and
sympathy.
Then came a
very well-known work, Mendelssohn’s Andante
and Rondo Capriccioso. The main part, the rondo, was marked Presto, very fast,
by the composer. I have never heard it
played faster.
Barnatan
has an exceptional keyboard technique, and he used it to dazzling effect in
this lovely, graceful music. “It took my breath away”, a member of the audience
said to me afterwards. Yes!
More
mind-boggling virtuosity came with Ravel’s La
Valse, the composer’s piano transcription of his celebrated orchestral
work. This was a brilliant and totally compelling performance.
The main
work of the evening was Schubert’s Sonata in A major, D. 959 (the D stands for
Otto Deutsch, who classified all Schubert’s works about 70 years ago). Schubert
wrote about 20 piano sonatas and they were sadly neglected for many years. In
recent times they have, however, been recognised for the masterpieces they are.
The three last sonatas, his finest, were written only a few months before his
death in 1828 at the age of 31.
D.959 is
the penultimate sonata and it is a wonderful work. The strong, decisive opening
Allegro is followed by a melancholy Andantino that develops into intense
drama. Then comes a bouncing Scherzo
and, finally, a Rondo that is a long, unending stream of beautiful melody (the
main tune was a favourite with Schubert; he used it in another sonata).
This long
sonata - it runs for about 40 minutes - was given a commanding interpretation
by Inon Barnatan. He played with power and authority and with superb tonal
contrasts. It was a privilege to listen to this performance.
The Prelude
Performer of the evening, funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust
Fund, was Elisabeth Manduell, a 17-year-old pupil at Durban Girls’ College. She
played the flute, performing a piece by Albert Roussel, and sang songs by
Gabriel Faure and Edith Piaf (La Vie en
Rose), all displaying talent and high promise. - Michael Green
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