(Conductor
Yasuo Shinozaki)
Outstanding performance of a timeless
masterpiece. (Review by Michael Green)
The wonderfully familiar and the totally
unfamiliar were presented by the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra at the fifth concert
of their summer season in the Playhouse, Durban.
At one end of the scale of general
knowledge we had Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, a supreme masterwork, and at the
other a trombone concerto by the Danish composer Launy Grondahl, a name that
would have been unknown to most members of the audience.
The performance of this concerto had a
truly international flavour, with a Danish composer, a Japanese conductor,
Yasuo Shinozaki, and an Italian soloist, Andrea Balocco. The conductor is a
much admired previous visitor to Durban and the soloist is the principal
trombone player in the KZNPO.
Launy Grondahl (1886-1960) wrote his trombone
concerto in 1924. It is apparently regarded as the main work in the somewhat
limited repertoire for this instrument. The trombone, a member of the brass
section of an orchestra, can produce a very loud sound but it can also be
gentle and mellow, and it is this aspect that Launy Grondahl often emphasises
in his 16-minute concerto.
The result, as was revealed in the Durban
performance, is a very pleasant, graceful and unusual piece of music. Andrea Balocco
played with great skill and with a controlled cantabile tone, especially in the
slow movement, the most memorable part of the entire work. The audience
obviously enjoyed this new experience.
Yasuo Shinozaki was his usual expressive
self on the podium in the opening item of the concert, Grieg’s Holberg Suite
for string orchestra, a delightful work by this sometimes underrated Norwegian
composer.
But of course the big music of the evening
was Beethoven’s seventh symphony, a composition which Richard Wagner once
described as the apotheosis of the dance. It is indeed, among other things, a
brilliant display of rhythm. Its extraordinary power and beauty drew huge applause
at its first performance in Vienna 203 years ago, and posterity has always
agreed with that high opinion.
The orchestra played the symphony with exceptional
power and precision. Yasuo Shinozaki conducted with enormous energy, and the
orchestra and the audience responded, the latter with a prolonged ovation at the
end.
This was an outstanding performance of a
timeless masterpiece. - Michael Green
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