(Liebrecht Vanbeckevoort)
It was a
Hungarian evening at the Durban City Hall for the latest concert of the KZN
Philharmonic Orchestra.
The
programme was occupied by Hungary’s two greatest composers, Franz Liszt and
Bela Bartok, and the orchestra was conducted by a newcomer here, the
34-year-old American conductor Kazem Abdullah.
Liszt typifies
in many ways the 19th century and Bartok the 20th, and there is a span of a
hundred years between the composition of their works played here. Yet the
Hungarian strain is obvious in both composers, though it must be admitted that
Bartok was represented by his most popular and accessible and least obscure
work.
The concert
opened with Les Preludes, written in
1848, the best of Liszt’s 13 symphonic poems. It is an ardent, brilliant work.
Its rather enigmatic title comes from a poem by the French writer Alphonse de
Lamartine, who saw life as a series of preludes to the inevitable end.
Kazem
Abdullah, who is the music director at Aachen, Germany, showed from the outset
that he is a conductor with a lively and warm personality. He has quite a restrained style on the podium
but there was no doubting his control and his attention to detail. The
orchestra responded admirably, with a compelling performance of this romantic
and majestic music.
Then came
Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat, completed in 1849, with the 29-year-old
Belgian pianist Liebrecht Vanbeckevoort as soloist. This is another fine work,
notable for its extraordinary unity. Its four movements are played without a
break, and the main themes recur several times, especially the powerful and
energetic opening subject. It is also very difficult to play.
Liebrecht
Vanbeckevoort delivered the thundering octaves and rapid runs with power and
accuracy, and the true artistry of his playing was revealed in the Adagio,
which presents one of the loveliest melodies in the entire concerto repertory.
After prolonged
applause he gave an encore, Liszt’s arrangement of a song by Schumann, Widmung, Dedication.
Finally we
had Bartok’s big, bold Concerto for Orchestra, written in 1943 for the Boston
Symphony Orchestra (Bartok had emigrated to the United States in 1940). The
title seems anomalous – a concerto is normally written for solo instrument and
orchestra – but the composer himself explained that he had treated all the
instruments in a solo virtuoso way at different points.
It is
melodious, strongly rhythmical, forceful, and brilliantly scored, and the
orchestra were in splendid form in music that was probably unfamiliar to many
members of the audience. -- Michael Green
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