(William
Charlton-Perkins. Pic by Clinton Marius)
Winter classics bonanza.
A wealth of chamber, choral and orchestral
music is on offer for KZN concert-goers.
Pianist Christopher Duigan turns his hand
to a programme titled 20 Wonderful Piano
Solos, this month. Duigan will introduce items that may be seen as popular,
but are no less varied and appealing. The selection include Bach's Goldberg Aria, Liszt's Un sosprio, The Lark by Balakierev, Automne
by Cecile Chaminade, music from the four corners of the earth, from film scores
and a few technical and musical misfits.
Performances of 20 Wonderful Piano Solos will take place as follows: Thursday 24
May at 19h00 at Grace Hall Ashton International College, Albertina Way, Ballito
(opp. Ballito Hospital); Tuesday 29 May at 19h30 at St Agnes Church, Kloof;
Friday & Saturday 1 & 2 June at
18h00 for 18h30 in the Tasting Room at Highgate Wine Estate Cellar, Piggly
Wiggly Country Village, 1 Dargle Rid, Lions River, at Highgate Wine Estate, 1
Dargle Road in the Midlands, on Saturday 2 June at 18h30; and on Sunday 3 June
at 11h30 am at the Tatham Art Gallery,
Pietermaritzburg. Booking is preferred: booking@musicrevival.co.za or music
revival 083 417 4473 (sms or WhatsApp only).
(Chag
Sameath chamber group)
Friends of Music’s next recital on Tuesday
29 May features a collaboration of four leading musicians from the KZNPO in a
balanced and very entertaining programme centred around Mozart and Beethoven
for flute quartet and string trio. Artists appearing in the recital are:
flautist Sabine Baird, violinist Petia Koleva, violist David Snaith, cellist
Margurite Spiess. The programme opens with Beethoven’s Serenade in D, opus 8
for violin, viola and cello. This will be followed by: Haydn’s
"Sunrise" Quartet in B flat for Flute, Violin, Viola and Cello; the
Handel/Halvorsen Passacaglia in G minor for Violin and viola; and Mozart’s
Quartet in D KV 285 Flute, Violin, Viola and Cello. Starting at 19h30, this
event will be held as usual at the Durban Jewish Centre, 44 KE Masinga Road.
Tickets are available at the door and ample secure parking is provided.
The Durban Chamber Choir (DCC) is set to
perform a programme of English choral repertoire drawn from the 16th and 20th
centuries, enticingly grouped under the title, Bittersweet. This can be heard in Pietermaritzburg on Sunday 27
May, and in Durban on Sunday 3 June.
Innovatively curated by the Choir’s
Director, Dr Christopher Cockburn, the upcoming programme will feature music
capturing a wide spectrum of emotions and mind-sets, ranging from lighthearted
love songs to darker-tinged pieces reflecting a more sombre mood. Works to be
heard will include those by early music masters such as Thomas Tallis (1505–1585),
Thomas Morley (1557–1602) and John Wilbye (1576–1638), alongside pieces by Sir
Edward Elgar (1857–1934) and others, including a short setting of George
Herbert’s poem Bitter-sweet composed
by Cockburn himself.
In all the 16th-century pieces the texts
themselves mention either the word ‘bitter’ or the word ‘sweet’, or both. Some
focus entirely on the ‘sweetness’ of their subject (primarily love), as in
Morley’s well-known madrigal Now is the
month of Maying. Others, such as Tallis’s Like as the doleful dove focus on its ‘bitterness’. The really
interesting ones are those who see both, and fuse them together in that
apparent contradiction of ‘bittersweetness’, as in John Wilbye’s remarkable
six-part madrigal Draw on sweet night.
Music’s ability to express contrasting emotional states simultaneously was
picked up by the English composers of the late 19th to the mid-20th century,
who were able to capture a characteristic mood of gentle melancholy, of radiant
beauty tinged with sadness. This can be heard in different ways in the two
part-songs by Elgar, and the two anthems (accompanied by organ) by Edgar
Bainton and Herbert Howells, which are accompanied by the organ and are staples
of the English cathedral repertoire.
DCC’s Bitter
Sweet programme will be performed at the Lutheran Church in Hayfields,
Pietermaritzburg on Sunday 27 May, and reprised at St Thomas’s Anglican Church,
Musgrave on Sunday 3 June. Both performances start at 15h00, and last about an
hour. Refreshments will be served after the concerts. Tickets are available at
the door from 14h00, and admission to the venues is from 14h30. Tickets are R70
per person (student/scholar OAP concessions R40). School groups are admitted
free, and group bookings may be made, by prior arrangement with the Choir
(jacomien@citrusacademy.org.za).
Finally, a reminder that the KZN
Philharmonic’s Winter Season runs in the Playhouse Opera Theatre every Thursday
from 7 to 28 June at 19h30. The season includes an exciting line-up of guest
artists set to perform a rich and eclectic repertoire with the Orchestra. For
programme details visit www.kznphil.org.za. Season tickets and bookings for
individual concerts are available through Computicket. Call 0861 915 8000 or
book online at www.computicket.com. For
more information call 031-369 9438 or email bookings@kznphil.org.za – William Charlton-Perkins
Posts
