(Jerome Pernoo & Jerome Ducros)
Wonderfully successful recital. (Review by
Michael Green)
The two Jeromes from France, Jerome Pernoo,
cello, and Jerome Ducros, piano, are well-known and much appreciated in Durban;
they have played here several times over the past dozen years. It was therefore
not surprising that their latest recital for the Friends of Music at the Durban
Jewish Centre attracted a sizeable audience.
They did not disappoint their admirers. In
a widely varied programme they displayed high technical skills, mature
interpretative insight, and the special understanding that comes from many
years of playing together.
They opened with one of Johann Sebastian
Bach’s three splendid cello sonatas, written originally for a now obsolete instrument,
the viola da gamba. The Sonata in D major, BWV 1028, is a four-movement work
written 250 years ago and sounding remarkably modern to 21st century listeners.
The performers who are both about 40 years
old, obviously enjoyed playing it, with cellist Pernoo the dominant figure. He
has a flamboyant yet natural platform manner, and his playing, like that of
pianist Ducros, is top-class.
After this came a composition by Ducros
himself, an extended Fantaisie which,
according to the composer, is like a sonata in a single movement. I found it
very attractive¸ brilliant, stylish, often unmistakably French, with romantic,
lyrical passages for the cello and some brilliant scoring for the piano,
sometimes rather reminiscent of Chopin. Easy on the ear and not aggressively
dissonant.
After the interval we had the finest of
Beethoven’s five excellent cello sonatas, that in A major, Op. 69. Here again
the tonal balance of the two performers was outstanding, Pernoo producing a
golden tone on his 18th century cello and Ducros handling the difficult piano
part with well-judged dynamics.
The particular gift of these performers is
their ability to communicate their commitment and enthusiasm to their audience,
and this was never more evident than in their lengthy and high-spirited encore,
written, I think, by Jerome Ducros. It completed a wonderfully successful
recital.
The Prelude Performer of the evening,
funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, was 14-year-old Blake
Perryman, a pupil at Kearsney College. Accompanied by Bernard Kruger, he played
two celebrated pieces, Brahms’s Hungarian
Dance No. 5 and the Czardas
written a century ago by the Italian composer Vittorio Monti. - Michael Green
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