(Daniel
Walshaw, KZNPO artistic administrator)
First City Hall concert to be conducted by
the orchestra’s newly-appointed artistic administrator. (Review by Michael
Green)
Five lesser-known compositions made up the
programme for the latest concert, before a good-sized audience in the Durban
City Hall, of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra’s winter season.
This was the first City Hall concert to be
conducted by the orchestra’s newly-appointed artistic administrator, Daniel
Walshaw, an American, and it also marked 25 years since the first appearance
with the orchestra of the distinguished South African pianist Christopher
Duigan.
Daniel Walshaw is a young man, recently
married to the orchestra’s concert master (leader), the violinist Joanna
Frankel, and he was described in the programme notes as “a model 21st century
inter-disciplinary musician” – conductor, scholar, composer. He impressed in this concert with his precise
conducting style, strong beat and apparently good empathy with the players.
Christopher Duigan, who is based in the KZN
Midlands, is a pianist who has great technical skill and the interpretative
insights that come from many years of experience.
The conductor and all the players on stage
had to contend with a distressing interruption when one of the orchestra’s
women violinists collapsed and fell heavily during the performance of Liszt’s Totendanz for piano and orchestra. She was carried off, a doctor was called from
the audience, and after about ten minutes the conductor announced that she was
“OK” (but she was taken to hospital for a check).
Pianist, conductor and orchestra began
again, and Christopher Duigan delivered a stunning performance of Liszt’s virtuoso
piece, which is based on the mediaeval Dies
Irae (Day of Wrath) chant. His
playing was as exciting visually as it was aurally, with thundering octaves,
rapid repeated chords, glissandi and quicksilver runs.
As an encore he played Liszt’s Hungarian
Rhapsody No. 6 in D flat, another virtuoso piece that runs for about seven
minutes.
Earlier, in a very different musical
environment, Duigan and the orchestra had given a graceful and elegant account
of Mozart’s Concert-Rondo in A major, K. 386.
The concert opened with a seldom heard
Mozart work, his noble and dignified Adagio and Fugue, K. 546.
After the interval the orchestra played
Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring
suite, a lovely evocation of old America, and then came Schubert’s Mass No. 2,
D. 167, with about a hundred singers from the Clermont Community Choir and the
Durban Symphonic Choir. The vocal soloists were Nozuko Teto (soprano), Wayne
Mkhize (tenor) and Mthunzi Nokubeka (baritone), all of them former music
students at the University of KZN.
They were all good, but the star performer
was undoubtedly Nozuko Teto who, in the dominant soprano role, displayed a
first-rate, full-bodied and well-trained voice that should take her far. - Michael
Green
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