COENRAAD VISSER on the eagerly awaited premiere of Roelof Temmingh’s first piano concerto
First performances of new orchestral works by South African composers are, unfortunately, so rare that any first performance is quite an event – the more so when the new work is substantial, not merely a brief introduction played at the start of a concert, seemingly to get it out of the way of the mainstream repertoire.
So it was almost with bated breath that the lamentably minuscule audience at Johannesburg’s Linder Auditorium greeted the world premiere of Roelof Temmingh’s piano concerto.
After all, the omens were favourable: Temmingh has long been one of a handful of South African composers who consistently produce work of a high standard; the excellent Transvaal Philharmonic Orchestra was to be conducted by the ever-reliable David Tidboald; and in Melanie Horne the composer had the perfect performer to do justice to his work.
This concerto is Temmingh’s third attempt at writing a work of this type, but the first one he has actually completed. It is a further example of Temmingh’s more accessible style, a hallmark of his recent output. It is conventional in form, updated with more than cursory references to Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Prominent parts were written for percussion and brass, not always the TPO’s most proficient sections, although in this performance they acquitted themselves well.
The prominence given to these sections, though, did cause serious problems of internal balance. On a few occasions, emphasis on the piano, playing in its weakest register, was (predictably) overwhelmed by the blazing brass.
All credit to Horne, though. A seasoned performer of local music, she had all the qualities required to do justice to the work: an infallible technique to sustain her virtually without pause and the mental faculties not only to play a first performance from memory, but stylistically to give a flawless reading.
The concerto was framed by well-disciplined and constructed performances of Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture and Beethoven’s fifth symphony. As always, the TPO strings were a joy to hear; they are, quite simply, without peer in this country.