(Lukáš Vondráček)
Dynamic pianist with a wide tonal range impresses Friends of Music audience. (Review by Michael Green)
At the age of 26 the Czech pianist Lukáš Vondráček is a
seasoned veteran of the concert hall. The son of two professional pianists, he
gave his first concert at the age of four!
He was 16 when he made his first major appearance as a soloist, with the
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy, and since then he
has given more than a thousand concerts in 27 countries in Europe and North
America.
The audience at his first recital in
Durban, for the Friends of Music at the Durban Jewish Centre, expected
something exceptional and they were not disappointed. In a programme of
stimulating and enjoyable music, most of it off the beaten track, he showed
that he is a dynamic pianist with a wide tonal range, strong but poetic, and
with a technique that makes light of difficulties.
He opened with Brahms’s Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118, beautiful and
varied works, part of a cluster of short piano compositions that Brahms wrote
in the 1890’s, towards the end of his life. Vondráček gave an
extraordinarily powerful performance of the final Intermezzo in E flat minor, a
far-ranging interpretation of the mediaeval Dies
Irae, Day of Wrath, theme that has attracted so many composers.
Two Russian composers of the early 20th
century gave the pianist plenty of opportunity to display his technical
prowess. Alexander Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 4 in F sharp major, written in
1903, is a two-movement work full of the mystical ecstasy so typical of this
composer (his most famous composition is called Poem of Ecstasy). Vondráček gave an exciting performance of this
difficult and enigmatic music.
Sergei Rachmaninov wrote his Variations on a Theme of Corelli in 1931.
Arcangelo Corelli used the theme in a violin sonata in 1700 but the tune goes
back further than that; it is an old Portuguese/Spanish folk song called La Folia.
Rachmaninov’s 20 variations are highly inventive,
consistently interesting and attractive, and written in Rachmaninov’s
distinctive virtuoso style. Corelli would have been very surprised to hear this
version of “his” tune. The performance was outstanding.
The shorter works on the programme were Dazzle
by the Cape Town composer Peter Klatzow, a vivid, whimsical, and ingenious
display of “light effects” from the piano; two Chopin Nocturnes, nothing very
nocturnal about Vondráček’s highly individual interpretations;
and Three Czech Dances by his
20th century compatriot, Bohuslav Martinu - fast, robust, glittering and
totally enjoyable.
The Prelude Performer of the evening,
funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, was a promising
14-year-old violinist, Kiara Moodley, who is a pupil at Eden College. - Michael
Green
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