(Max &
Alexander Baillie)
Arjan Tien closes The KZN Philharmonic
Orchestra’s 2018 Summer Season with a dynamic programme of three superbly
contrasting masterworks. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s collaboration with the
Venetian-born poet, librettist and (defrocked) Catholic priest, Lorenzo Da
Ponte, saw the birth of three towering masterpieces: Le nozze di Figaro (1786); Don
Giovanni (1787); and Così fan tutte
(1790).
The full title of the second of these three
operas was inscribed as Il dissoluto
punito, ossia il Don Giovanni (The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni). It
depicts a dissolute man who refuses redemption and is ultimately dragged down
into the flames of hell. The high melodrama of its overture brilliantly
presages the demonic events that follow, including rape, murder and a series of
heartless, if aborted, seductions.
In the concert hall, it is a
pulse-quickening curtain-raiser before a nuanced work such as Brahms’s last
orchestral magnum opus, his Double Concerto for Violin and Cello. The concerto
was composed and premièred in 1887 in Cologne, played by the cellist Robert
Haussmann, a chamber music colleague, and Brahms’s long-estranged friend, the
violinist Joseph Joachim. The work’s introspective, benign characteristics
signified the composer’s attitude of reconciliation towards Joachim, after a
break in their friendship following Joachim’s divorce from his wife Amalie,
with whom Brahms had sympathised in the dispute. A fine showcase for the
renowned father and son duo, Max and Alexander Baillie, this work rewards
performers and listeners alike, as the subtleties of Brahms’s mature score
unfold.
Soloists will be father and son Max and Alexander
Baillie (cello and violin).
Sibelius’s Second Symphony marks the end of
his early Romantic period. Its genesis can be traced to Sibelius’s trip to
Italy in 1901, and some of his sketches from this trip surfaced in its
wonderful score. Following its première in 1902 the work underwent several
revisions before deservedly achieving the lasting popularity it enjoys today.
The concert takes place on March 15 at
19h30 in the Playhouse Opera. Booking is at Computicket.
There
will be a pre-concert lecture conducted by Dr Teddy Pillay at 18h00 in the
Playhouse Alhambra Room. Tickets at the door.
Posts
