CLASSICAL MUSIC: Coenraad Visser
ANOTHER stunning French pianist, another enterprising programme, another accomplished conductor, another triumph.
Cecile Ousset first visited South Africa long before she became a household name in countries like Britain. Here for the first time in many years, with the National Symphony Orchestra, she gave a performance of Saint- Saens’s second piano concerto, which must rank as one of the greatest live performances of this mercurial masterpiece ever heard in this city.
Ousset’s boldly assertive attack never masked the charm and elegance pervading this work. Instead, there were constant moments of delight, little fluctuations of tempo to highlight almost forgotten detail, and reflection and refinement all the better to offset immense outbursts.
Paul Capolongo, also, remains a conductor all too rarely heard in this city. Very clear in intent and direction, and a complete master of the scores he conducts from memory, he shows just how poorly NSO audiences have been treated by the fifth-rate British conductors that have waved their arms at the orchestra so often in the recent past.
Kodaly’s Dances of Galanta was immaculately paced, so that the power of the massive climaxes was even more telling than usual. But perhaps Capolongo’s most compelling success was with Franck’s Symphony in D Minor, a work that too easily can sound dour and uninspired. Not so with Capolongo. Again his control of ebb and flow was masterly, his vision direct without any cheap indulgence. The orchestra responded magnificently; this is fast becoming a season in which it is restoring the high standards of its playing last heard many moons ago.
New principal conductor Victor Yampolsky will conduct works by Vaughan-Williams, Barber and Rachmaninov at 8pm on Wednesday and Thursday in the Linder Auditorium, Johannesburg