(Maestro James Ross)
James Ross is a really appealing figure on the podium.
(Review by Michael Green)
Mozart the master and some accessible and attractive music
from the 20th century made up the programme for the penultimate concert of the
KZN Philharmonic Orchestra’s spring season in the Durban City Hall.
The central item was the Concerto for Clarinet and String
Orchestra, with Harp and Piano, by the American composer Aaron Copland. This
was written in 1948 for the jazz clarinet player Benny Goodman
It was played here by the French clarinettist Olivier Patey,
who is a member of the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, and the conductor
was a visiting American, James Ross.
The concerto has only two movements and they are played
without a break, linked by a lengthy cadenza for the soloist. The music is
consistently interesting. The slow movement suggests the rural atmosphere and
open spaces of much of America (rather like the same composer’s famous Appalachian Spring), and the second
movement moves into the world of jazz, with swinging tunes and off-beat
rhythms.
All this was delivered by Olivier Patey with great skill and
style. The audience much enjoyed it, judging by the applause at the end.
James Ross is a really appealing figure on the podium. He
has an animated, expressive, enthusiastic style of conducting, sometimes almost
dancing to the music.
Under his direction the orchestra were in fine form in the
opening item, Igor Stravinsky’s Divertimento from Le Baiser de la Fée, The Fairy’s Kiss.
In 1928 Stravinsky wrote a ballet with that name, from a
story by Hans Christian Andersen. The Divertimento is a four-movement suite of
music from the ballet.
It is really a tribute to Tchaikovsky, and has many
fragments of that composer’s music. The orchestra captured admirably its
effortless charm and grace.
Finally we had a great masterpiece, Mozart’s Symphony No. 40
in G minor, a concentrated display of restless energy and lyricism. The KZNPO
showed the good tonal balance essential in Mozart’s music, in which all the
voices of the orchestra are important.
There will be no symphony concert on October 16. The final
concert of spring season is on October 23, when the KNPO will present Carl
Orff’s wonderfully entertaining choral composition Carmina Burana. I will be giving the pre-concert lecture at the
Playhouse at 18h15. - Michael Green
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