A GIFTED husband and wife were the principal performers in the second concert in the Durban City Hall of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra’s winter season.
Jeremy Silver is an English conductor who has built a substantial reputation over 20 years. Sally Silver is a soprano of distinction, with an impressive record in opera. She and her husband live in London, but she grew up in Durban and had her early musical training here.
With the KZNPO they presented Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, written in 1948, a year before his death at 85. These are beautiful songs, a memorable farewell. The English titles are: Spring, September, Going to Sleep and At Sunset.
They are melancholy, but their soaring melodies and rich orchestral part make them inspiring. Sally Silver has a pure and powerful voice, particularly in the upper register, and sang with emotion and commitment. Jeremy Silver conducted with appropriate restraint and drew forth a sympathetic interpretation from the orchestra. The four horn players had important roles in these songs.
The concert opened with the ethereal Prelude to Act 1 of Wagner’s Lohengrin, and after the interval we had Rachmaninov’s Symphony No 2 in E minor. This work is a romantic outpouring of music in Rachmaninov’s irresistible style: long, sweeping phrases and brilliant orchestration. Jeremy Silver conducted with expressive animation and obtained a lovely, balanced performance from the orchestra, especially in the Adagio, the heart of the symphony.
It lasts nearly an hour, but the time seemed to pass very quickly.
Meanwhile, the cello has many admirers in Durban, judging by the crowd that turned up at the Durban Jewish Centre for a Friends of Music concert entitled Cellibration.
This was an evening dominated by the cello, and a large audience, about 180 people, responded with great enthusiasm. The nine performers, all members of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra, were six cellists, plus important contributions from the violin, viola and percussion. The leading figure was Boris Kerimov, KZNPO principal cellist, who took part in all 13 items and made many of the arrangements for cello.
He opened with a 15-minute suite for solo cello, unaccompanied, by the 20th century Spanish composer Gaspar Cassado, a challenging work for performer and audience. It is Bach-like in form but Spanish in content, with folk refer- ences. It was played with great skill and assurance.
Kerimov was joined by his wife, Elena Kerimova (violin), and David Snaith (viola) for Beethoven’s String Trio in D, Op 9, No 2. The five Beethoven string trios are lovely works, not played often, written by the composer when he was quite young but having the imprint of his genius. This one was beautifully played, with precise and accurate ensemble and lovely sounds from Kerimova’s violin.
After the interval it was all cello, with a percussion element. The cellists were Kerimov, Jennifer Cox (Lintz), Nina Watson, Fiona Grayer, Marguerite Spies and Ralitsa Todorova. Stephane Pechoux of the KZNPO’s percussion section joined the cellists and almost stole the show with a virtuoso hands and fingers performance on an extraordinary basin-shaped drum.
The audience rewarded the players with a standing ovation.
The prelude performers, funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, were Il Signori, a quartet of young Zulu male singers, who beguiled with skilfully harmonised songs, the best being Tula Tula, a compilation of Zulu lullabies. – Artsmart.co.za