CAPE TOWN CONCERT SERIES REVIEW. Percussion in Concert, with Magdalena de Vries, Eugene Trofimczyk, Stephan Galfin and Dylan Tabisher. At The Baxter Concert Hall. On 12 April, 2025. ALBERT COMBRINK reviews.
Second only to the human voice, percussion instruments – the musical instruments that make their sounds by being struck, rubbed or hit with something – are believed to be amongst the earliest on our planet, with evidence dating back to at least 6000 BCE, of instruments being consciously constructed for a musical event.
The 12 April Cape Town Concert Series covert continued its 70th year celebration with a Percussion Quartet concert-event that was entertaining, innovative, interactive and educational. Anyone with preconceived ideas about the limits of musical expression available to a group of instruments usually associated with being noisy thumps that give a beat, would have had their assumptions severely challenged.
Magdalena de Vries is South Africa’s foremost classical marimbist, having literally won ALL major the South African music prizes and international scholarships that were available in the country. Further studies at the Tokyo College of Music further broadened her outlook, and her contribution to the percussion fraternity in South Africa is immeasurable. From teaching, to adjudicating at competitions, to performing and commissioning new works, she is the public face of the South African Marimba.
A battery of instruments
She was joined by Eugene Trofimczyk from the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as Stephan Galfin and Dylan Tabisher, who are regular extra-player with the same orchestra. The concert required a vast battery of instruments – to show off various combinations and ensembles within the context of 4 available players, and the CPO collaborated with the CTCSeries both to make the players available from a busy concert-schedule, but also to provide a stage full of percussion instruments.
De Vries talked us through the programme, with highly informative information about the instruments, the pieces, or the composers. What struck one, was not hearing a Groves Dictionary entry (what we music-nerds regarded as the Bible before Wikipedia) – but a very human, honest and tender view into the mind and life of a percussionist:
– The need to negotiate a vast array of instruments, and mastering playing techniques of a large number of very different styles
– Practical thinking: how to place all the instruments and their various hammers and accoutrements within reach in the most practical way
– Creative thinking: if a tuned ghong in a certain tone or key is not available, what can we construct that would give a similar effect?
– Special awareness: how do three people play one drum at the same time and no-one gets a drumstick in the eye?
– Balletic movement: the artists also moved around the stage like ballet dancers – not making a sound! Many years of training to move silently between the instruments, clearly on display!
Her talks covered the furniture repositioning between pieces perfectly. What exactly can four drummers do, musically speaking, for an hour? Quite a lot, as it turns out!
Crisp, invigorating opening choice
“Fire” by American percussionist and composer Pete O’Gorman (1960) was a crisp and invigorating opening choice, extending the traditional drum-kit to four individual players, hence capable of much higher level of complexity than would be managed only by one drumkit player. The sounds were familiar from traditional drumkit-sounds: a good introduction to the soundworld of the entire concert. While not as wildly inventive as some of O’Gorman’s works that include vocal and space-elements, it was a solid intro to percussion writing of the early 1980’s
Marimba and cowbells
De Vries commissioned South African composer Lise Morrison (1988) to write a work for marimba and a set of cowbells she had come across on her travels. “Pendants” (2020) had an exquisite colour-palette, exploring both similarities and differences between the metal Austrian Cowbells and the wooden marimba.
The three-movement works invites one into a meditative space, evoking sacred settings, and the auspiciousness of the soundworld is amplified by playing the wood of the marimba with a Double-Bass bow. For my taste, the many sonic delights were offset by a certain lack of direction. Perhaps I was looking for a narrative where one was not required. Perhaps the extreme narrow pointillism and Weber and Feldman had not quite crossed Arvo Pärt’s tintinnabulist bridge and the piece either ended too soon or too late.
We dug further into modern percussion ensemble history with the 1971 ”Sonatina for Percussion” by American composer, educator and trumpeter Mickey Tull (aka. Fisher Tull 1934-1994). The opening theme is presented in canonic style, and developed through a series of cadenzas, allowing each member of the ensemble a soloistic spot to shine. The choice of softer mallets for the metallophone and marimba made for a gentler melodic experience than some versions which focus on harder and more aggressive sounds, making the entire ethos of the work – and this ensemble – expressive rather than mechanistic impressiveness.
“Trio per uni””
“Trio per uni” Op.27 by Serbian-born German-based Nebojša Jovan Živković (1962), allowed the three gentleman to be anything but gentle with one shared bass drum. Embodying both the tradition of composer and virtuoso performer in one person, Živković is compared to 19th century virtuoso composers such as Liszt or Paganini. The three players certainly gave a thrilling performance of the work which seems to be a distillation of wildness, of, what the composer himself describes as “sometimes three guys just need to beat the hell out of the thing”.
“Aurora Borealis” by John Thrower was my favourite work on the programme. A colourful and thoroughly engaging multicoloured, multitextured outpouring from the inspiration of the “northern lights” phenomenon that occurs from the reflection of sunlight on atmospheric dust particles generally seen in the dark evening hours of countries in the northern hemisphere. Whistling from the players added to the other-worldly effect of this marvellous work that deserves multiple hearings.
De Vries thrilled in a solo-marimba version of “Amazing Grace”, remarkable for showcasing the seemingly impossible task of playing four mallets with two hands, and being able to change the distance between them like giant chopsticks, to alter chords and shape a melody so loved and familiar that the tiniest slip would derail the illusion. Also, playing so soft, while actually HITTING a piece of wood, that it sounds like a human voice humming, has to be experienced live to be appreciated.
A welcome encore was a work 4 the quartet sitting down and, in De Vries’s words, “slapping themselves”. Ending with body-percussion both brought us home to our biological, human roots, but also connected audiences with their inner children. The joy of rhythm. The joy of texture. No expensive instruments required. A put delight.
Children became the focus after the concert as audience members were invited on stage to explore the instruments first-hand, under supervision of the professionals. The stage was covered in delighted audience members of all ages, exploring, questioning, learning, delighting, remembering, and some even tried out a drum or two. Did I say delighting? Let me say it again: delighting. A happy audience who got more than they expected, and were delighted more than they expected.
Another innovative win for the Cape Town Concert Series, the premier Chamber Music platform in South Africa.
The next Cape Town Concert Series event is on 10 May 2025, at 11:00 – “African Pianism” with Rebeca Omordia. Book here.
Read about other Cape Town Concert Series performances here and here.
What: Cape Town Concert Series Review – Magdalena de Vries Percussion in Concert
Reviewer: Albert Combrink
WS
