KZNPO SUMMER SEASON CONCERT 2: REVIEW

 

(Conrad van Alphen)

 The variations and polonaise lack nothing in brilliant and flamboyant pianism, which was ‘brought off’ with practiced assurance. (Review by David Smith)

 KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra World Symphony Series, Summer Season, Concert 2 (March 12, 2026)

The Playhouse Opera

 It was obvious that Gabriel Fauré’s Masques et Bergamasques, a four-movement suite of benign neo-classical, had to preface this programme: it is refined and delicate music, and thus it could make its point before virtuosity and vigour took over the evening. Fauré’s pieces take their inspiration from the art of Antoine Watteau, a world of pierrots and lute-players, of fashionably-dressed young men and women adorning Arcadian landscapes.

The historical rhymes involved were striking: Watteau’s original popularity represented a public withdrawal from the militaristic statism of Louis XIV’s reign, while Faure’s commission came at the end of World War 1 when Europeans sought recuperation from the preceding years of carnage and chaos, and now we were afforded a retreat from the savagery of contemporary geopolitics. Just an evening in a concert-hall.

The conductor Conrad van Alphen put his imprint on the sound from the first, easygoing bars: he drew listeners into the poised dances, directing the orchestral flow and shading towards the restrained yet quietly buoyant world of Watteau-esque manners. It was remarkable that so chaste and understated a start should have roused the audience to their first bout of enthusiasm.

 

(Ludmil Angelov)

 

The Bulgarian pianist Ludmil Angelov comes with years of immersion in Chopin’s oeuvre. By carrying us through the early Variations on Mozart’s “La ci darem la mano”, via the exquisite Andante spianato (solo piano) to the rousing Grande Polonaise brillante, and coupling this with two encores – the Waltz in C-sharp minor and a Mazurka in G minor – he offered us a neat and delectable survey of Chopin’s career through the 1820s and early ’30s. 

The variations and polonaise lack nothing in brilliant and flamboyant pianism, which was ‘brought off’ with practiced assurance.

 Angelov’s feeling for the rhythmic gestures of the polonaise and mazurka was married to a judicious approach to the execution of the much-discussed Chopin rubato, the subtle but necessary flexibility of speed in right-hand melody, as well as for harmonic and rhetorical expression. In fact, his doughty approach was fascinating for its demonstration of the interplay between the two hands, and their integration with the pedalling. Van Alphen managed to raise the orchestral contribution above the humdrum role that it has in these two Chopin works by creating an atmospheric presence behind the pianist’s complex circuitry.

The season closed with Beethoven’s Second Symphony, and the delivery amounted to one of the most cogent accounts of a symphony that we have heard in recent months. Van Alphen ignited the players and kept them constantly alert to the interplay of parts in a work that maintains its momentum in a spirited fashion. From the dramatic introduction, engagement was obvious, and the energy of the first movement underlay all the rest of the work. The second, slowish movement and the following brief scherzo contain the most exposed writing of the symphony. But nothing was stopping the players now, their affectionate and sensitive Larghetto giving way to the bounding pulsations of the third movement. The final dashing Allegro molto brought home the vivacity of Beethoven’s conception in a symphony broadly considered conservative in style!

The sense of the unity of the performance was an indication that Van Alphen was directing not so much a succession of ideas as a single, flexible instrument fit to tackle both the large gestures and the detailed paths of themes and sonorities. Fittingly, no one in the audience broached the pauses between movements with applause (merited though it might have been), not because they were obeying a rule but because they were following a thread. - David Smith

 

NB:

The two KZNPO Winter Season Concerts take place on June 11 and 18, 2026, at 19h00 in the Playhouse Opera. Booking is at Quicket.

 To visit the KZNPO’s website click on the advert at the top right-hand side of this review.