(Philipp
Richardsen)
Consummate pianism. (Review by William
Charlton-Perkins)
in recital for Friends of Music on October 17,
2017, Viennese born Philipp Richardsen, an internationally acclaimed pianist of
Norwegian descent, treated his Friends of Music audience at the Durban Jewish
Centre to an evening of superb music making.
He opened his programme with a profound
account of Franz Schubert’s cerebral but deeply satisfying late masterpiece,
the Piano Sonata in A Major D959 - a work whose huge emotional spectrum rings
the changes from mellow ebullience, bucolic fervour and occasionally soaring
spirits in its outer movements, to heart-rending despair in its second
movement, surely one of Schubert’s greatest moments of inspiration.
Richardsen’s pristine yet powerful delivery
of the much-loved work did it full justice, evincing exhilarating evidence of
the consummate technical mastery and sensibility of a true virtuoso whose
individual stamp breathes fresh life into a concert staple, creating a sense of
new discovery for his audience.
Richardsen’s prowess was equally in
evidence in the second half of his programme. This opened with Chopin’s iconic
Ballade No I in G minor, one of the Romantic master’s best known works whose
hallmark characteristics include interludes of sonorous drama alternating with
glittering flights of lightning-swift passage work, interwoven with tenderness
and the emotive pull that are unique to Chopin’s writing.
The pianist then treated his audience to a
short work by the seldom-heard Norwegian composer, Haldfan Kjefulf (1815–1868),
his Idyll from Pieces Opus 4 no 2. Usually the sort of piece offered as an
encore at the end of an evening, here, as if in evidence of Mr Richardsen’s
savvy skill in programming, it was an effective interlude before embarking on
the evening’s finale, which ironically proved an apposite acknowledgment of the
hurricane season we have all experienced recently.
Joining a long line of famous pianists,
Richardsen exulted in pitching his audience into the high seas of Ferruccio
Busoni’s mighty piano transcription of JS Bach’s Chaconne in D minor from his
Violin Partita No 2 BWV 1004. The pianist’s powerhouse bravura in dispatching
of this formidable warhorse provoked a storm of richly deserved applause.
Lizst’s Liebestraum,
as a bona fide encore, brought to a close an evening which had begun with
touching renditions by the promising young soprano, Nontobeko Bhengu, an 18
year-old pupil of Lihlthembe High School, who
as Friends of Music’s prelude performer, sang Mozart’s Ach ich fuhls, and Puccini’s O mio babbino caro, accompanied by Bobby
Mills. – William Charlton-Perkins
For more information on Friends of Music
visit http://www.friendsofmusic.co.za/
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