(Daniel
Boico)
Tonight sees the fourth – and final –
concert of the KZN Philharmonic’s Summer Season.
The Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra
under the baton of Associate Guest Conductor, Daniel Boico, will feature one of
this generation’s greatest pianists, Olga Kern, who is from a family of
musicians with direct links to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. She will be
performing Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor.
The following is from the KZNPO’s
programme:
“Grieg’s Peer Gynt music was originally composed to accompany a performance
of Ibsen’s 1867 drama of the same name. It was completed in 1875 and the play’s
lavishly staged premiere took place the following year in Christiania (now
Oslo) with the orchestra conducted by the Grieg himself. Dissatisfied with the
fragmentary nature of his music, Grieg subsequently devised his two suites in
188 and 1893 respectively.
Secondly only to his A Minor Piano Concerto
the Peer Gynt Suite No 1 is the composer’s
most popular work, its Morning and In the Hall of the Mountain King movements
ranking among the most loved of all short orchestral compositions.
(Olga
Kern)
The ubiquitous Piano Concerto in A Minor, written
in 1868, was the only concerto Grieg completed. It has since been championed by
generations of virtuosi, not least the illustrious Russian pianist Olga Kern.
The Concerto is often compared (and recorded as a companion) to the Piano
Concerto of Robert Schumann. It shares the same key and its character is
palpably closer to Schumann than any other single composer. Grieg heard
Schumann’s work performed by the latter’s wife, Clara Wieck, in Leipzig in 1858
and was greatly influenced by Schumann’s style, having been taught the piano by
Schumann’s friend, Ernst Ferdinand Wenzel.
Dvořák’s Symphony No.1 in C Minor composed
in 1865, was written in the early romantic style, patently inspired by
Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Ironically, given its early position in his
symphonic oeuvre, it was the only one of his symphonies that Dvorak never heard
performed or had a chance to revise, as it was lost shortly after its composition
and did not come to light until 1923, some 20 years after the composer’s death.
It received its first performance in 1936. A rarity to this day, its
performance here (in Durban) is sure to prove of great interest.”
The sound of bells is a motif to be
explored in this concert as Dvořák’s Symphony No 1 references the bells in
Zlonice, a market town in the Czech Republic where he lived as a student. The
bells rang on and every hour keeping the young composer awake at night.
The concert takes place tonight (March 7,
2019) at 19h30 in the Durban City Hall. Booking is through Computicket or
tickets available at the door.
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