The ‘headline’ work
was the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 (Op. 58), familiar to all concert-goers.
It poses severe technical challenges in its passage-work, to which Ben
Schoeman, the South African pianist, was equal; he showed a delectable fluency
in rapid figures and runs. (Review by David Smith)
The programme for the final concert of the KZNPO’s winter’s
season took place on June 27, 2024, in The Playhouse Opera.
It had as a theme (if it may be called that) the beauties of Nordic art-music, and the choices were two works fresh to our ears. As a boon, they required an instrumental array that, though not easy for the orchestra to maintain, delivered the depth and colour of sound that we think of as ‘symphonic’.
Under the baton of Daniel Raiskin, the Concert Overture in D Major (1873) by Elfrida Andrée turned out to be a most welcome exposure to her music. She was the first woman in Sweden to hold a cathedral organist position, as well as being a conductor and composer. So, we have just begun repaying an historical debt. From the solemn wind invocation of the introduction and through the windings of its highly melodic course, orchestra and conductor produced a winning account of this mature and substantial composition.
The ‘headline’ work was the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4 (Op. 58), familiar to all concert-goers. It poses severe technical challenges in its passage-work, to which Ben Schoeman, the South African pianist, was equal; he showed a delectable fluency in rapid figures and runs. Still, this tour-de-force – the last that Beethoven himself performed in public – is about more than bravura playing: like marriage, it is not to be entered into lightly. The first test arrives right in the opening bars, in which the piano ‘speaks’ in a brief exordium that is both a summary of a crucial theme to be developed and an indication of the poetics of the first movement. (One example: the pianist often plays with both hands in high registers, projecting a nimbus of sound over the orchestral activity.) And there is a pre-Romantic repose and gravity in the ideas that seemed not to engage the soloist fully. The orchestra worked hard to offset this, and in part succeeded.
Perhaps Schoeman’s encore, Beethoven’s Rage over a Lost Penny, best suited his groove - an Allegrissimo flurry that showed off his superior technique by means of this oddly ‘raging’ Hungarian-style piece.
Grieg’s Symphony No. 1 in C minor (he intended a second, but never managed it) dates from 1864, when the composer was a mere 20-year-old completing his studies in Leipzig.
Two things are immediately understandable: the vigour that pervades the symphony, and the unavoidable tones of Mendelssohn and Schumann that colour parts of the score. Yet the ‘added factor’ of Grieg’s own romantic susceptibilities is also present to a degree, making it difficult to understand his judgement that a work that had seen just a handful of performances in the mid-1860s ‘must never be performed’. That spell was broken only in the 1980s, and for that and the highly convincing account we heard, we must be thankful. The inner movements, an Adagio espressivo and an Intermezzo with a strong dance feeling, stood out especially for their content and satisfying execution.
One looks around at the end of another season and reflects on how faithfully many of the older KZNPO patrons have continued to support the orchestra. The rebuilding of the Playhouse foyer has been adding a further degree of discomfort for those of limited mobility. And yet they attend! A salute, then, to all the regulars, and to the KZNPO management for the innovative provision of bus transport from the outlying suburbs. - David Smith
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