Totally enjoyable concert. (Review by Michael Green)
The piano trio - piano, violin and cello - is one of the
most agreeable forms of music, with a big and varied repertory, but it seems to
have been rather neglected in Durban.
Three distinguished local performers did much to redress
this situation in the latest concert of the Friends of Music at the Durban
Jewish Centre. Called the Group of Three, the three players were Liezl-Maret
Jacobs (piano), Boris Kerimov (cello) and Elena Kerimova (violin), the latter
two, husband and wife, being members of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra.
The piano trio repertory includes works by Mozart, Brahms,
Dvorak, Schubert, Ravel, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. The Group of Three chose
three of the best-known examples, by Haydn, Mendelssohn and Beethoven.
They opened with a big work, Beethoven’s four-movement Trio
in C minor, Op. 1 No. 3. This trio and its two companions form what is probably
the most remarkable Op. 1 written by any composer. They date from 1795, when
Beethoven was making his mark in Vienna.
The C minor trio is a reminder that Beethoven was a supreme
pianist. Liezl-Maret Jacobs presented the challenging piano part with great
skill and aplomb.
All three players delivered the music with a minimum of the
extravagant and demonstrative gestures of some other performers. Elena Kerimova
produced a lovely sweet violin tone and Boris Kerimov excelled with his deep
cello song.
This was followed by No. 39 of Haydn’s 45 piano trios, the
one known as “The Gypsy” because its last movement is a rapid and rhythmical
rondo labelled “in the Hungarian manner” (although the high point of the trio
is surely the middle movement, a beautiful, flowing Adagio).
After the brilliant, rapid final movement the large audience
showed their appreciation with prolonged applause.
The first of Mendelssohn’s two piano trios, in D minor, Op
49, is a typically tuneful, polished, urbane work, and the players showed
excellent tonal balance and individual skills. Liezl-Maret was again
outstanding in the virtuoso piano part.
The Prelude Performers of the evening, supported by the
National Lottery Development Trust Foundation, were the Durban Girls’ College
String Trio. The players were Rachel Wedderburn-Maxwell (first violin), Tasmin
Hastings (second violin) and Janelle Janse van Rensburg (cello), all music
pupils of Violeta Osorhean. In a brief programme of pieces by Mozart, Beethoven
and the Belgian composer Hector Fiocco (1703-1741) they displayed impressive
skills and talents.
This was a totally enjoyable concert, more evidence that we
have top-class musicians in Durban. - Michael Green