/ 7 May 2004

In key for a new season

The Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra’s (JPO) fourth birthday is on June 21 — an unbelievable feat, because the months between January and June 2000 were some of the blackest for orchestral musicians in Johannesburg.

At the end of January 2000 the old National Symphony Orchestra was disbanded owing to a lack of funds. That orchestra gave two heart-rending free performances to the Johannesburg public in Parktown’s Linder Auditorium without a conductor. Both houses were brimful. Many thought it the final death knell for orchestral music in Africa’s richest city.

The musicians thought differently. They started forming committees to investigate the possibility of establishing a new orchestra where each member would be a stakeholder in the company they collectively own. The JPO gave its inaugural concerts on June 21 and 22 that year in the Linder with Finnish maestro Hannu Lintu conducting. The sustainability of regular symphony seasons was one of the challenges facing the new orchestra. It met only sporadically during the first 30 months of its existence. However, since 2003 it presented four symphony seasons annually. With ample corporate funding, the JPO is now able to plan seasons at least a year ahead. After an excellent first season in 2004 with only a couple of artistic disappointments, lovers of symphonic music can look forward to an arguably better second symphony season, starting on May 12 at the Linder. The five-concert season on Wednesdays and Thurdays at 8pm ends on June 10.

Although United States composer Alan Hovhanness’s Mysterious Mountain (1955) is apparently popular on Classic FM, a live performance of this work by the composer of Armenian and Scottish parentage might have a different impact.

Only a minority might appreciate the composer’s New Age sounds and his sometimes boringly conservative harmonies. The orchestration is colourful and mystical, but unfortunately at times, also wearisome.

However, the same concert presents French pianist Jean Dubé (23) who won the International Liszt Competition in Utrecht, The Netherlands, two years ago. He’ll be playing the Liszt Piano Concerto No 1 in E Flat Major.

But how adroit will conductor Michael Hankinson be and what kind of exoticism will he be able to evoke in the full score of Stravinsky’s Firebird Ballet?

The week after that, on May 19 and 20, a new conductor will take his bow with the JPO — Pretoria-born Conrad van Alphen, who already has an international reputation. He will conduct Russian master pianist Boris Petrushansky in a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 4 in G Op 58, while he will also bring us one of the 20th century’s most celebrated symphonies: the Shostakovich No 10 in E Op 93. In terms of formal analysis, few of the composer’s symphonies have had more written about them than this one.

For the three remaining concerts, the JPO has contracted a maestro who has had a special relationship with it from the very first year — Germany’s Bernhard Gueller. He or the riveting Charles Ansbacher from the US, who conducted during this year’s first season, is the kind of orchestra trainer the JPO needs to continually grow as an symphonic entity. Gueller brings us three stimulating, divergent programmes.

The first, on May 26 and 27, are by Czech, Hungarian and Russian composers, opening with a selection of Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances, followed by a rare performance of Bartok’s Viola Concerto as prepared for performance from the composer’s original manuscript by Tibor Serly.

The brilliant, Russian-born violinist, who lives in Pretoria but is often one of the JPO’s sub-principals, will be the soloist. The concert ends with Rachmaninov’s swansong, the broodingly melancholic Symphonic Dances, Op 45.

The following week Anton Nel (piano) is the soloist in music by Viennese composers: Schubert’s Rosamunde Overture, the Brahms Piano Concerto No 1 in D Op 15 and Beethoven’s Symphony No 3 in E Flat Op 55 (The Eroica), also performed at the JPO’s inaugural concert.

The theme for the final concert on June 9 and 10 is The Planets. Not only will Gustav Holst’s famous suite be heard, but the June concert opens with Mozart’s last and arguably greatest symphony, No 41 in C K551 (The Jupiter). Book at Computicket.