FRIENDS OF ORCHESTRAL MUSIC GALA CONCERT, November 19, City Hall; CPO conducted by Bernhard Gueller, soloist Antonio Pompa-Baldi; BRAHMS: Symphony No 3 in F, Op 90; Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat, Op 83. DEON IRISH reviews.
THIS was the second year that the Friends of Orchestral Music has sponsored a gala concert in support of the work of the Cape Town Philharmonic, an orchestra they have supported in its several manifestations for some 50 years.
The organisation is an invaluable cog in the musical fabric of the city and deserves both recognition and continuing support for their part in ensuring the viability of orchestral music and musicians in this community.
Certainly, on this occasion, they were responsible for hosting a concert that was undoubtedly one of the finest concerts of recent years; Gueller, the orchestra and Pompa-Baldi, a veritable conjurer of the keyboard, combining to achieve a performance of stature, which generated the most enthusiastic response.
Of course, regular readers over the years will by now have gleaned my enormous admiration for the work of Brahms, a composer who arguably reached the very apogee of orchestral writing of the tonal era, and I freely admit to that bias. But there would surely be very few who would not concede the superb organisation of the musical arguments in the F major Symphony, or the sublime fusion of logic, emotion and technique that places the B flat Concerto amongst the greatest of those penned for the piano.
In combination, they made for a compelling listening experience.
The symphony is very different to the unduly long-in-genesis First, with its alternation of anguish and Alphorn-inspired recollections of the majesty of the Swiss Alps; or the genial Second, sunny with the rocking leisure of a Styrian lakeside holiday. It is altogether tauter and more urbane in conception, said to be inspired by a visit to the Rhine. I have never found overtly Rhenish tones in its great striding opening movement, nor yet in the lush waltz-like commencement of the Development.
Gueller paid apparently little attention to these supposed origins in an account that concentrated on the musical logic of the composition and which drove the opening movement to a splendid conclusion in a carefully delineated Coda that contrasted the initially frenetic string writing with smoother choral wind passages that finally yielded to a kind of resignation.
The charming Andante commenced with a neatly focussed wind quartet playing a deceptively simple theme, one which allows the composer to indulge in some of his favoured variation writing. Gueller took Brahms at his word and so narrated an unfolding tale that was ever changing and always intriguing.
There followed the melancholic allegretto, with it’s gently regretful cello subject and suggestions of misty landscapes before we were plunged into the agitated finale – a movement in which, perhaps, a hint of river rapids might indeed be detected. This was all restless energy and hurled about counter rhythms until the music burst out into the final tranquil pool, with a final reflection of the very opening moment in its placid strains. A wonderful account.
Pompa-Baldi then showed us precisely how great the B flat piano concerto is – and, almost incidentally, his own extraordinary stature as a masterly interpreter of this repertoire.
I think I might have heard two momentary slips in a blistering account that simply seared itself into one’s memory. They were utter irrelevancies – simply brushed away by the musical force of this interpretation and by the astounding technique harnessed to achieve it.
There was hardly an aspect of the pianist’s craft that Pompa-Baldi did not examine, clean up, burnish and display – but never with the slightest air of self-consciousness and always with absolute felicity to the score and the recreation he sought to realize.
A few aspects of his great many attributes deserve particular mention. First, in a concerto that so demands a rich sonority, particularly of the left hand, the evident lack of any effort in achieving such was consistently intriguing.
Even more so was his octave playing – nowhere more so than the vicious episode in the scherzo, following the D major fugato. Achieving butterfly wing lightness at breakneck tempo, he followed it up with an equally vicious chordal variation, sempre legato, as required; jaw-dropping, as intended.
The finale was a playful romp in which a faultless bouncing left hand technique was matched by equally impressive chians of thirds in the right hand.
But it was the slow movement that was the truly unforgettable movement: a searingly beautiful idyll of perfectly weighted notes – assisted by a distinguished solo contribution from principal cellist, Kristiyan Chernev, who was warmly acknowledged as a co-soloist by Pompa-Baldi during the unusually lengthy and boisterous ovation that followed the performance. Bravo, indeed!