(Nelson Freire)
Nelson Freire gave an exceptional performance of one of the
great masterworks. (Review by Michael Green)
A concert by the Alma Chamber Orchestra from France provided
a highly enjoyable prelude, in the Durban City Hall, to the coming winter
season of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra.
The Alma orchestra was formed two years ago by a French
business man, Zouhir Boudemagh. It consists of about 50 young players from
French orchestras and its purpose is to “play for peace” world-wide. It has
just returned from North Africa and is now touring South Africa. Alma means
“soul”.
The orchestra’s South African tour has been sponsored by
Ivor Ichikowitz, a politically connected Johannesburg businessman who established
his fortune through the sale of second-hand and new South African military
weaponry to countries in Africa and the Middle East. He is apparently a good
friend of President Jacob Zuma.
For the Durban concert the Alma orchestra was reinforced by
players from the KZNPO. It has a lively young conductor, Lionel Bringuier, and
an equally lively concert master, Anne Gravoin, who leads the orchestra and
sometimes conducts it herself.
On the South African tour they have been joined by a
distinguished Brazilian pianist, Nelson Freire (70), who has had a long concert
career; he played a Beethoven concerto in public at the age of 12.
The Durban concert attracted a good-sized audience,
obviously boosted by a generous number of complimentary tickets. Many of these
listeners had probably not been to a classical concert before, and one hopes
that they will come again.
Unusually, and previously unannounced, the proceedings
opened with the anthem of the African Union, sung with an orchestral
accompaniment, by a brightly clothed choir of about a hundred singers.
Then Nelson Freire took the stage and gave an exceptional performance
of one of the great masterworks, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 4 in G major. He
turned out to be a most interesting figure: grey hair, grey beard, slow gait,
but with superbly skilful and agile fingers. He took the concerto at a brisk
speed, faster I think than most pianists, but conveyed fully its many
subtleties and graces.
A brilliant performance brought forth an ovation from the
audience, and the pianist responded with two encores, Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring, and Giovanni
Sgambati’s transcription of Dance of the
Blessed Spirits from Gluck’s opera Orpheus
and Eurydice, both exquisitely played.
The orchestra showed in the concerto that they were a group
of accomplished and disciplined players under the quite restrained but
effective direction of the 29-year-old conductor Lionel Bringuier. This
impression was confirmed in a precise and balanced performance of Mendelssohn’s
Symphony No. 4, the Italian Symphony.
The concert was completed with a work called Earth by the film music composer Wael
Binali, who was born in London of Qatari parents and now lives in the United
States. - Michael Green
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