Coenraad Visser Classical music
In its first season without SABC funding, the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) shows that the energy and sense of purpose which marked its last season were not the last desperate gasps of an orchestra on its death bed. The last three concerts of the newly independent orchestra confirm one’s impression of an orchestra which at last seems willing and able to play to its full potential.
One of the reasons for the current high standard of orchestral playing must be the higher standard of conductor, with the odd exception, to appear with the NSO. Gone (one hopes) are the days of the seemingly endless procession of British mediocrities.
The first two of these concerts were conducted by Mika Eichenholtz, the latest impressive young conductor to come out of Scandinavia.
The first concert showed his clear sense of classical style – taut and energetic, with rhythms crisply articulated and textures beautifully transparent. But perhaps more impressive was the way in which he secured a clearly different style for Haydn’s first symphony and Mozart’s last. This was no mean feat, given that in lesser hands these two composers often sound boringly alike.
In the second concert, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique was made to sound like a true fantasy, presented now in brilliant and then in sinister colours, with many touches of inspiration which seemed spontaneous and natural on the night. A better live performance would be difficult to imagine.
NSO trumpeter Robin Finlay was noble and elegant in Haydn’s trumpet concerto, characterful without being aggressive. In Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Trumpets he was joined to similar spectacular effect by his colleague and former student Duncan Bouwer. Finlay and Bouwer showed that there is no reason for the relatively few NSO players allowed into the solo spotlight in recent seasons.
French cellist Jerome Pernoo gave the South African premiere of Dutilleux’s Cello Concerto, written for Rostropovich. Predictably, then, the work demands great virtuosity to give full effect to, as the subtitle would have it, “a whole distant world”. Pernoo was quite breathtaking in his mastery of both the technical and interpretative aspects of this evocative work. May he return soon.
Last week, Irish-born conductor Robert Houlihan could not match the standard set by Eichenholtz. Victory’s The Irish Pictures were vividly characterised, but Holst’s The Planets became a rather obvious and flatfooted affair, not at all helped by the woefully false Chanticleer Singers. Celebrated pianist Cecile Ousset, too, failed to convey the lyricism and gentle humour of Schumann’s Piano Concerto.
On Wednesday and Thursday March 4 and 5 Vladimir Ponkin conducts Liszt’s Les Preludes and Piano Concerto No 1, Prokofiev’s Love of the Three Oranges and Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No 1 with soloist Lev Vinocour