(Conductor:
Yasuo Shinozaki)
Mendelssohn’s rarely heard Fair Melusina Overture makes a
refreshing curtain-raiser as the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra welcomes the return
of Japanese conductor Yasuo Shinozaki to the podium for the third concert of
the current World Symphony Series Spring Season.
Mendelssohn wrote this music as a birthday
gift for his sister Fanny. Loosely illustrative of aspects of the legend of
Melusine, a water nymph who marries Count Raymond on the condition that he
never enters her room on a Saturday (on which day she takes on the form of a
mermaid), this concert overture was first performed in London by the
Philharmonic Society Orchestra, conducted by Ignaz Moscheles under the title Melusine, or The Mermaid and the Knight. The performance was received politely
but not enthusiastically. Mendelssohn subsequently revised the piece and it was
published in the revised form in 1836.
(Robert
Pickup, clarinet)
The serenity of Samuel Barber’s
hypnotically beautiful Adagio for Strings, perhaps the 20th century American
composer’s most iconic creation, offers an interlude of quiet before South
African-born virtuoso Robert Pickup, Principal Clarinettist of the Philharmonia
Zurich Orchestra, takes the spotlight as the evening’s soloist in one of the
repertoire’s most thrilling showpieces - Carl Maria von Weber’s Clarinet
Concerto No. 1 in f minor. Perhaps the most operatic of all Weber’s works for
solo instrument and orchestra, the work, like its siblings, the Concertino Op.
26 and the E Flat Concerto Op. 74, was written for Weber’s clarinet muse,
Heinrich Bärmann, prince of early 19th century clarinettists, renowned for his
exceptional technique and beautiful sound. Small wonder the piece is beloved of
clarinet virtuosi and their admirers to this day.
The programme climaxes with another
inspired work: Robert Schumann’s Spring
Symphony, the German romantic composer’s first symphonic composition
written in 1841 as an utterance of the overflowing love he felt for his
newly-wed spouse, the renowned concert pianist Clara Wieck.
Book is through Computicket (0861 915
8000). For more information contact the KZNPO on bookings@kznphil.org.za or +27
(031) 369 9438
(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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