(Arjan Tien made a triumphant return to Durban’s concert
platform last night. The Dutch conductor brings the KZNPO’s summer season to a
close on Thursday (16 March))
Superb salute to
Beethoven. A performance of a lifetime. (Review by William Charlton-Perkins)
William
Charlton-Perkins reviews the third Summer Season concert of the KwaZulu-Natal’s
2018 World Symphony Series. The concert took place last night (March 8) in the
Playhouse Opera conducted by Arjan Tien. Soloist: Daniel Röhn (Violin)
Twenty years ago,
Arjan Tien, a fledgling conductor from The Netherlands, made his South African
debut with KZN Philharmonic in Durban. He was standing in at short notice for
an indisposed senior colleague. Reviewing that event, my opening line, in
response to the spirit of renewed energy and commitment from the orchestral
players under his baton, was an unequivocal ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
Now an immensely
evolved musician, Mr Tien brings many years of expertise to bear, having worked
with orchestras all over the world. His return to the KZNPO concert platform on
Thursday, for the first of this season’s closing two concerts, drew a warm response
from the house that was richly deserved, as he imparted his profoundly informed
knowledge of stylistic performance practice appropriate to the early Viennese
school of the high Classical and early Romantic periods.
Beethoven’s
ubiquitous Violin Concerto in D Major is a notoriously elusive piece - when
performed by unsuspecting soloists seeking to score points in the concert
circuit’s virtuoso stakes. This pitfall did not pertain to the evening’s
soloist. The prize-winning German violinist Daniel Röhn has earned his laurels
performing the concerto to wide acclaim. His teaming with Maestro Tien and his
players resulted in a richly nuanced rendering that glowed with a rising
emotional pull, right from the first movement’s famous opening bar.
Those four
suspenseful timpani beats gave way magically to the elegiac orchestral strains
that usher in towering tutti passages and lyrical interludes, leaving nothing
to be desired as the soloist made his sweet-toned entrance. Röhn went on to
exhibit phrasing of arching finesse and a sure-fire sense of line for which he
is renowned, dispatching playing of sinuous beauty. It was fascinating to
encounter his preference for the seldom-heard Joachim cadenza which replaced
the shorter and more familiar Kreisler one.
In the hands of the
evening’s conductor, soloist and orchestral players alike, the heart-stopping
second movement morphed seamlessly through its grand swells and tender lulls
into the rigour and exhilaration of the closing movement’s Rondo Allegro.
Röhn’s wizardry in the work’s joyous finale was sublime.
Tien’s historically
appropriate 19th century configuration of the orchestra’s string sections paid
spectacular dividends in his mighty rendition of the Eroica Symphony, with the
first and second violins facing each other, flanked by double basses at either
end of the stage, and the cellos and violas centre-stage, providing a
revelatory and deeply sonorous sound spectrum.
How to do justice to
Tien’s impassioned reading of this mighty work? Suffice it to say he drew from
his players a performance that teamed with a life-force of one’s dreams,
speaking throughout of the triumphs, despair and resolve that are compounded in
the heroism Beethoven envisaged. Seldom if ever has this concert-goer heard the
grief-laden dirge in the second movement more movingly enacted, while the
inexorable delivery of the great fugue in the fourth movement - one of the
miracles of Western music - was astounding.
A performance of a
lifetime. – William Charlton-Perkins
(To link direct to
the KZN Philharmonic’s website click on the orchestra’s banner advert on the
top of the page or visit kznphil.org.za)
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