Mostly Mozart
William Charlton-Perkins reviews the second
Spring Season concert of the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2018 Word
Symphony Series in the Durban City Hall.
Returning to the podium for the second
concert of the KZN Philharmonic’s 2018 Spring Season, German conductor Justus
Frantz devoted the bulk of the evening’s programme to a celebration of Mozart,
focusing on the early flowering of the 18th century Austrian composer’s genius.
The Overture to the opera seria Lucio
Silla served as the evening’s curtain-raiser. Commissioned when Mozart was
a mere 16 years of age, the work was first acclaimed in 1772 at the Teatro
Regio Ducal in Milan with the composer conducting.
Here, if this fleet-footed rococo piece
sounded somewhat overloaded due to the large body of players assigned to its
performance, it was further impeded by the conductor’s flaccid presence on the
podium. This resulted in a lacklustre reading of the work - disappointing in
the light of the repertoire credentials of Mr Frantz - that was rescued by the
unstinting level of professionalism of the ever-reliable KZN Philharmonic
players.
Alfred Einstein, the great Mozart scholar,
famously hailed the evening’s centrepiece, the Piano Concerto K 271, as ‘the
first outbreak of genius’ among Mozart’s 24 masterpieces created for piano and
orchestra. With its abundance of inspired confidence and revolutionary flouting
of conventions, such as a formal orchestral introduction to usher in the
soloist, the work might have offered a superb debut vehicle to introduce the
award-winning young Russian virtuoso, Dina Ivanova to the KZN Philharmonic’s
audience.
Sadly this proved otherwise - due partly, I
suspect, to a palpable mismatch between the soloist and the evening’s off-form
conductor. A prosaically dispatched first movement gave way to an emotionally
undercharged account of the work’s usually heart-rending minor key Andantino.
This was followed by a rhythmically unstable finale, where the pianist’s
limpid, pearly tone (lovely in itself) was undermined by a propensity for
rushing her fences with blurred articulation. Ivanova sounded as if, skimming along
the surface, she was dashing to catch a runaway train. Here again, the
Orchestra itself carried the day.
Adding a patriotic element to the evening’s
music-making, Bongani Ndodana-Breen’s Ma
Sisulu Sinfonia served as a centennial salute to struggle heroine Albertina
Sisulu, the work, according to a programme note by the composer, drawing from
the quiet strength and resilience of the revered matriarch. This premiere
performance certainly provided plenty of scope for the KZNPO to flex its
muscles in essaying the highly colourful, densely orchestrated score.
Concluding the programme, Mozart’s Coronation Mass in C Major K317 offered
a platform for the evening’s vocalists to shine. And thankfully they did, with
stand-out performances from lyric tenor Wayne Mkhize, and from soprano Linda
Nteleza, who gave a touching presentation of the work’s glorious Agnus Dei. From a choral point of view,
this overtly operatic Missa brevis,
with its wealth of melodic writing, received a wholehearted, if not ideally
nuanced, performance from Sounds of Joy – who are celebrating their 15th
anniversary this year. – William Charlton-Perkins
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