(Leonard Elschenbroich)
Outstanding cello player and a brilliant performance for
second summer season concert. (Review by Michael Green)
An outstanding cello player and a brilliant performance of a
Beethoven symphony were the main features of the second concert of the KZN
Philharmonic Orchestra’s summer season in the Durban City Hall.
A varied programme ranged from a great classic to a rarely
performed work from the 20th century. The rarity was Dmitri Kabalevsky’s Cello
Concerto No 2, which dates from 1964, and its inclusion was no doubt the reason
for there being more empty seats than usual in the hall.
Kabalevsky (1904-1987) was a Russian composer who more or
less obeyed the rules in the Soviet Union and who thus escaped the hardships
imposed on many other Russian composers.
His compositional style is fairly conventional, so his music
is reasonably accessible to those hearing it for the first time. And on this
occasion it was exceptionally well played by Leonard Elschenbroich, a
30-year-old German cellist who has won a big reputation in Europe and America
and who was making his South African debut with the KZNPO.
He gave a virtuoso display, playing with passion and
commitment in a work full of unusual effects, from its pizzicato opening to the
use of cadenzas to link its three movements.
The orchestra, conducted by the visiting Israeli-American
Daniel Boico, was a sympathetic partner in this performance, and the audience showed
their appreciation with prolonged applause.
Beethoven’s Symphony No 7 in A major, written in 1812, is
one of the greatest of all orchestral works, an immensely powerful, driving
composition that is a kind of monument to rhythm. Wagner called it the
apotheosis of the dance, and apparently he once tried to dance to the music (it’s
hard to imagine the composer of Tristan
and Isolde tripping, in Milton’s words, the light fantastic toe).
Daniel Boico conducted the symphony with enormous energy,
and the orchestra responded with a big, resonant, exuberant performance. It was
a truly exciting experience, and the audience gave the players and the conductor
huge applause at the end.
The concert opened with Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin (The Tomb of Couperin), a graceful and
elegant tribute to the composer Francois Couperin (1668-1733). In 1917, Ravel
wrote this suite for the piano, and he later himself orchestrated four of the
six items. They are delightful in either form. – Michael Green
Posts
