Programme of great music from Israeli-American
pianist Yossi Reshef. (Review by Michael Green)
A programme of great music for the piano
was performed by the Israeli-American pianist Yossi Reshef before an
appreciative Friends of Music audience at the Durban Jewish Centre.
Yossi Reshef was born in Israel 40 years
ago, has a doctorate in music from the
University of Southern California, now lives in Berlin, and has
established himself in Europe and North America as a highly regarded pianist.
He opened his Durban recital with
Beethoven’s Sonata in D minor, Op.31, No.2. This is often called The Tempest, because of a story by an
unreliable witness, Beethoven’s admirer Anton Schindler. According to
Schindler, Beethoven was asked about the “meaning” of the sonata and replied
brusquely “Read Shakespeare’s Tempest”.
It is difficult to find any connection with
The Tempest, but it is a splendid and
exciting sonata, and Reshef played it with skill and insight.
A Chopin group followed: the Etude, Op. 10,
No. 3, with the most beautiful melody Chopin ever wrote; the Minute Waltz, Op. 64 No 1; and the
Ballade No 1 in G minor, Op. 23. This familiar music was presented in virtuoso
manner, at high speed. Impressive, but I
prefer to hear it at slower tempi.
Schumann’s Davidsbundlertanze, Op. 6, brought forth the best playing of the
evening, in my opinion. Robert
Schumann’s piano music is a little neglected these days, I think. It includes
many of the best keyboard compositions ever written, and the Davidsbundlertanze
is one of them. The title means Dances of
the League of David (against the cultural Philistines) – Schumann was an
incurable romantic – and the work consists of 18 short pieces. He marked each
of these as representing Florestan or Eusebius, characters he had invented to
illustrate the impetuous and poetic sides of his own nature.
The music is lovely, and Yossi Reshef
explored all its subtleties and varied moods, producing a highly successful
performance.
The recital ended with Debussy’s celebrated
and beautiful Clair de Lune,
moonlight.
The Prelude Performers of the evening,
funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, were a very good brass
quintet from the Durban Music School, playing music by Rossini, Bach and
Gershwin.
The attendance at this concert may have
been affected by events a few days earlier in Johannesburg, where a recital by
Yossi Reshef was brought to an abrupt end by anti-Israel protestors, including
many Witwatersrand University students. These people blew vuvuzelas and shouted
outside, then burst into the concert hall and forced everybody, including the
performer, to leave. One demonstrator banged on the keys of the Steinway piano.
The university later issued an apology but emphasised “the diversity of ideas
at Wits”.
As Madame Roland observed 220 years ago,
during the French Revolution, “Oh liberty, what crimes are committed in thy
name”. - Michael Green
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