Classical Music: Coenraad Visser
ANTON NEL, the South African pianist now attached to the=20 University of Michigan, concluded his stay with the=20 National Symphony Orchestra with a pedestrian performance=20 of Bartok’s third piano concerto. Playing from the score,=20 Nel showed strong and nimble fingers, but not much else.=20 This concerto finds the composer at his most serenely=20 reflective, almost in a pastoral mood, far removed from=20 that of his first two piano concertos. Nel appeared lost in=20 their more brutal world, and clumsily hacked away at=20 Bartok’s evocative and refined sound picture.
With the Transvaal Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Gerd=20 Meditz redeemed his considerable reputation, somewhat=20 dented by his unidiomatic reading of Puccini’s La Boheme.
Meditz’s urgent reading of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 3 (The=20 Scottish) produced a performance to treasure for quite some=20 time. His tempi were ideal, and the result a performance=20 with plenty of power. Needless to say, the TPO was in top=20 form, led by the excellent strings.
Principal trombonist Michal Jasko showed his mettle as the=20 soloist in Henri Tomasi’s trombone concerto. Jasko dealt=20 with this French composer’s complex Ravelian figurations=20 with easily pointed virtuosity.
It is a pity that Meditz chose such a large body of strings=20 to perform Bach’s Suite No 3 in D BWV 1068. Though the=20 string attack was crisp and clean, the overall effect was=20 overblown and hardly authentic.
At 3pm on Sunday in the Linder Auditorium Gerd Meditz=20 conducts the TPO in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante and=20 Haydn’s Nelson Mass