KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra
World Symphony Series, Winter Season, Concert 1 (June 19, 2025)
Review by David Smith
It is an irony that, as our provincial orchestra battles to
keep on the right side of the financial line, it comes up with a concert like
this - a display, before a large house, of professionalism and passion that
would win a sponsor’s heart anywhere.
The announced work by Qinisela Sibisi as a preface to the programme was his Heritage Overture, but we were offered instead his Umnkenenezo (2025), a brief lyrical serenade for orchestra. It showed how his compositional trajectory has shifted from the tints of Viennese Classicism to a nineteenth-century register of warmth and affection. While it was a wholly convincing language, the piece felt truncated and left without making a strong impression. All in all, a rather slight curtain-raiser for the major works to follow.
Andrey Gugnin, on his first visit to Durban, made himself the champion of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and his playing left an indelible impression. The first hurdle, the sheer technical ambitions of the young pianist-composer (writing for himself at age 18), sets the bar high, and merely covering all the thousands of notes at speed is not sufficient for a performance any longer, if it ever was.
From the outset, Gugnin was absorbed by the equally onerous challenge of presenting the various layers in the sound, of which he proved himself master. With a palette that ranged from whispered exhalations to bright-edged jangling, he also explored the middle ground of transparent and yet warmly-turned chords, melodies, and flourishes, leaving no passage without its due share of thought and weight.
While the first concerto does not have the currency and the following of the second or third, it contains many of their ingredients in a less elaborated, more compact compositional style. And behind the soloist, conductor Daniel Boico was casting a spell under which the orchestra became increasingly attuned to the pianist until their union in sound was forged. It was simply the most involving live performance of the concerto I have heard.
As if to sign off his manifesto, Gugnin played Rachmaninoff’s Prelude, Op. 32, No. 5, as an encore. Not only was it an object lesson in the quietest playing, but it showed (as had the concerto in a more complex way) that, adjusted for speed, the most restrained sounds actually comprise an entire spectrum of colours. The rolling arpeggios of the left hand sounded like an Aeolian harp, and the melodies above and below had the regular sway of an object moved by the wind. However Rachmaninoff might have conceived it, the piece seemed like the embrace of art by nature.
All this transfixing music (the audience utterly silent throughout) provided the basis for a heroic account of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7, Op. 70, in the searching key of D minor. The work is acknowledged by many as the equivalent of the symphonic achievements of Brahms, from whom Dvořák drew much inspiration. But Wagner is invoked, too, in the sinuous harmonies and Dvořák has his own art of habitually layering his material, rather than always cultivating the direct expression of thought. That makes for musician’s music; yet, again, the audience listened spellbound and cheered the result to the rafters.
All the soloists (horn, flute, clarinet, oboe, violin) shone but in a contributory spirit, as Boico led the ensemble through a pulsating account, by turns majestically lively, then tender, dance-filled and assertive at the close. The entire work felt like a meander that coursed and overflowed its expressive banks. Boico’s hand was sure and his emotionally-coloured thought carried both the players and the day. For this performance, and for the many he has led here, we owe him great respect and our admiration. - David Smith
The next – and last – concert of the Winter Season will take place on Thursday June 26 at 19h00 in The Playhouse Opera.
Tickets available at Quicket. For more information contact info@kznphil.org.za.
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