Exceptional concert provides a joyous
musical occasion (Review by Michael Green)
The first concert of the KZN Philharmonic
Orchestra’s 30th anniversary season, in the Durban City Hall, turned
out to be a triumphant occasion in which, oddly enough, the KZNPO itself played
little part.
The stars of the evening were the young
players of the World Orchestra, 80 of them from 25 countries. They produced a
big opulent sound and generated great enthusiasm in a big audience.
The World Orchestra is a group of young
musicians formed about 40 years ago with the noble objective of using music and
musicians to entertain, communicate ideas, and promote social involvement with
people of different countries. Its headquarters are in Spain. Talented young
players from many countries get together twice a year for the orchestra’s
concerts. The Durban concert was their first of a brief tour of South Africa.
The conductor is Josep Vicent, a
42-year-old Spaniard who has taken the baton with many major European orchestras
and who has been in charge of the World Orchestra for several years.
The World Orchestra opened the Durban
programme with Dvorak’s brilliant and exuberant Carnival Overture, and the orchestra’s 45 string players continued
with a very different kind of composition, Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.
Barber, who died in 1981, was a gifted
American composer, and this is his best-known work. It started life in 1936 as
the slow movement of a string quartet, and the composer recast it for the string
instruments of an orchestra. It is simple, solemn, emotional and beautiful, and
the World Orchestra played it with admirable control and precision.
I would not have thought that a South
African composer would be the hit of the evening, but this was the case with
the three-movement Partita Africana
by Hendrik Hofmeyr, who was born in 1957 and is a music professor in Cape Town
with an impressive list of compositions, including ten concertos.
The opening Preludio of his Partita was dissonant, harsh and rhythmical in the
modern manner, but this was followed by some truly invigorating music based on
traditional Xhosa and Zulu themes. In this, the orchestra was joined by a
150-voice choir from the J G Zuma High School at Inanda. Conductor, players and
singers all joined in the happy spirit of the music, the singers swinging their
arms, the violinists and even the cellists rising in their seats at moments of
emphasis, and the singers and audience clapping in time to the music.
The total effect was captivating. I cannot
remember a more joyous musical occasion in the City Hall.
Finally, about 20 string players from the
KZNPO joined the World Orchestra in music from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet suites. With about a hundred players on the
platform, the effect was one of brilliant fortissimo contrasting with some
exquisite quieter passages.
This exceptional concert earned a prolonged
ovation at the end. - Michael Green
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