KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra - World Symphony Series, Early Spring Season, Concert 1 (August
20, 2026) in the Playhouse Opera. (Review by David Smith)
Suddenly, the addition of a single symphony concert to the
two-concert ‘seasonettes’ that have been the pattern since mid-2025 has brought
a dimension to the current season that feels generous.
The ever-changing roster of visiting conductors and soloists (along with some rotation) has made variety, especially with respect to the regular appearance of women conductors, refreshingly normal. Even the reliance of the orchestra on many non-contract players seems to have had a beneficial side: the performances by the ensemble have maintained a commendably high level of coherence.
The first programme brought together major works by Brahms and his Czech protégé and admirer, Dvořák, under the baton of Barbara Dragan, a busy and accomplished conductor. For Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto, Zlata Chochieva was the soloist. Both women are seasoned and highly-regarded artists whom we are lucky to have had as visitors, especially as the concerto is a comparative rarity here. It is an exceptionally demanding work - its four movements running to more than 50 minutes duration - for both pianist and orchestra.
Though the broad and passionate mood of the orchestra’s opening exposition set the scene for Brahms’s uniquely sonorous piano writing, Ms Chochieva had something a little different in mind. She is a formidable technician, known for her traversals of Chopin’s and Rachmaninov’s oeuvre, and much besides; and she made light of the strictly-physical demands presented by the composer. Taken in another sense, she approached the style with a more beguiling touch than is the norm in Brahms’s music, which has an unmistakable heft derived partly from his personal attributes (he was a formidable composer-performer) and partly from his symphonic aspirations.
Instead of the direct, at times weighty address suggested by the writing, Ms Chochieva played with rubato effects and produced some veiled sonorities not far from the mistiest Debussy. Of course, not all her playing was of this oblique and scented kind, but her general slant was away from a mainstream reading.
Since it is clear from her many recordings that she is a vigorous performer, this was a conscious choice. It paid dividends in such passages as the start of the lyrical third movement, where its effect was touching, and invested the main theme of the finale with a degree of whimsy. But it undermined the purposiveness of the ‘scherzo’ (movement 2), the long, controlled drive that is a Brahmsian hallmark. This being the case, the individual listener could take from the performance a range of responses: I felt a progressive hunger for the impassioned, even volcanic layers in the score that kept being deferred.
For that reason alone, the arrival after interval of the far less complex but richly-scored Symphony No. 8 by Dvořák was a welcome release. Without undue highlighting, Dragan led the players in an open-hearted and dynamic account of this popular work. While it was obviously indebted to some accomplished wind playing, it was the strings – who had sounded a touch restrained in the concerto – that came to the fore and ‘argued the case’. They provided the foundation of the kaleidoscopic moods and instrumentation contained in the work, and for its ‘spontaneity and freshness’ (Hanslick). It was the orchestral cohesion that Dragan solicited, sometimes taut, sometimes tender, that proved a special delight. - David Smith
The World Symphony Series, Early Spring Season, Concert 2
will take place on August 27, 2026, at 19h00 in the Playhouse Opera. Booking is
through Quicket.
To visit the KZNPO
website, click on the advert at the top right-hand side of this review.