(Daniel Ciobanu)
A display of brilliant virtuoso playing. (Review by Michael
Green)
Daniel Ciobanu, a 25-year-old Romanian pianist who lives in
Berlin and had his musical education in Scotland, gave a display of brilliant
virtuoso playing in a recital for the Friends of Music at the Durban Jewish
Centre.
The programme consisted of three big works and some lesser
known pieces, all of them technically demanding.
Chopin’s Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise is one of the
Polish master’s lesser known compositions, sometimes performed with an
orchestra. The Andante is beautiful and extended (Spianato means smoothed out);
the Polonaise is brilliantly scored.
Ciobanu, a slender, bearded young man, gave a splendid
performance, with a delicate, clear tone in the Andante and high speed
dexterity in the Polonaise. It was impressive to see as well as to hear, and it
brought forth an ovation from the audience.
Mussorgsky’s massive Pictures
at an Exhibition, composed in 1874, was played with great power and
dramatic effect, with admirably judged tonal contrasts. This, too, was greatly
appreciated by the audience.
It was followed by attractive and richly harmonised 20th
century pieces by the Romanian George Enescu (1881-1955) and the Russian
Nikolai Medtner (1879-1951).
Finally we had Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 7, written in
1942, fast and brutal. One celebrated Russian pianist describes it as a
portrait of totalitarianism and goes so far as to say that some of it depicts
Stalin.
It is by any reckoning a savage composition that makes
formidable demands on the player, especially the final movement. Daniel Ciobanu
handled these with great skill and conviction. This music may not have been to
everybody’s taste, but everybody must have been impressed by the
performance.
The prelude performer of the evening, supported by the
National Lotteries Commission, was Zama Mkhwanazi, a 16-year-old pupil at
Northlands Girls’ High School. Accompanied at the piano by Bobby Mills she
showed a promising soprano voice in three well-known songs. - Michael Green
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