CLASSICAL MUSIC: Coenraad Visser
DESPITE the fact that it is said to be staring death in the face, the National Symphony Orchestra still managed to end its winter season on a cheerful and humorous note.
Conducted by Peter Louis van Dijk, the orchestra sent up two stalwarts of the classical music repertoire — the oratorio and the piano concerto. Van Dijk’s The Oraltorio and Beethoven or Bust! (subtitled A Duel for Piano and Orchestra) owe much to Anna Russell’s merciless take-off of Gilbert and Sullivan and Victor Borge’s spoofs.
With perhaps too many “in-jokes” to be immediately accessible to the mainly young audience, the works remained entertaining and were played with just the right sense of humour. Nina Schumann as a tipsy prima donna pianist was a revelation, incidentally playing the piano far better than on recent visits.
Sadly, though, this season also saw the departure of two outstanding members of the NSO.
Principal flautist Leslie Sheills returns to England after 20 years. In Allan Stephenson’s Concertino for Flute and Strings Shiells displayed all his considerable skills and his fine sense of musical style. Clarinettist Robert Pickup, leaving to study in Switzerland, bid farewell with Thomas Rajna’s amiable Rhapsody for Clarinet and Orchestra, written for Pickup. With a performance which communicated vividly with the audience, Pickup confirmed his stature as the leading clarinettist in South Africa. A pity that for the foreseeable future his artistry is lost to this country.
The winter season has traditionally been a happy occasion for local performers and conductors; this year was no exception. Violinist Pieter Schoeman, now making a career in France, again impressed in Mozart’s fifth violin concerto and the Bach double concerto (with his wife, Florence Garel). NSO principal double bass, Victor Bogdanov, too, showed that in the Bottesini concerto that he merits more scope to display his talent.
Of the conductors, as expected, only Gerard Korsten made any impression at all. In whatever he conducted, and despite his tantrum in rehearsal about the quality of the orchestral playing, Korsten’s reading are always revelatory, perhaps never more so than in the classical works by Mozart and Haydn.