SYMPHONY CONCERT REVIEW: RISING STARS 2. Thursday, 25 January 2024. At the Cape Town City Hall. CPO Conducted by Jonathan Lo, soloist Luka Coetzee. Glinka: Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture. Prokofiev: Sinfonia Concertante. Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances. ALBERT COMBRINK reviews.
Ever since its first performance in 1842, the Overture to the opera Ruslan and Lyudmila has been entrancing audiences. Tonight’s performance was no different. It is simply a brilliantly scored and planned masterpiece, combining tremendous virtuosity with an exciting, folk-inspired idiom. The rest of the opera was less warmly received, but it was a defining moment for the music of the Russian Nationalist movement.
Glinka was hoping to work with the author Pushkin on the libretto for the fairy-tale, but Pushkin had the misfortune of dying in a duel, leaving Glinka high and dry. It seems her had more success in writing pure music than he had in fashioning opera-libretti. Lo and the CPO were in synch. A brisk (but not frantic) tempo and thrillingly clear and brilliant string playing of the crucial opening salvos of scales, plastered a smile on everyone’s face, which simply did not diminish for a moment. The tempo did not leave that much space for too much detail, but the more melodic material was beautifully phrased.
Well-deserved accolades
Currently studying at the “Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt” in Weimar, Canadian cellist Luka Coetzee made her Cape Town debut in Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante Op.125. In October 2023, she received the first prize at the esteemed 7th International Paulo Cello Competition in Helsinki, Finland. She is also the first prize winner of the 2022 Pablo Casals International Award and the 9th Johansen International Strings Competition. She is a top prize winner at various other international competitions, including the 6th UNISA International Strings Competition. On this hearing, these accolades are well-deserved.
A reworking of the First Cello Concerto, the Sinfonia Concertante is not an unproblematic work. Prokofiev usually wrote with legendary facility and confidence. Sergei Eisenstein wrote of the experience of working with the composer on the film, Alexander Nevsky: “We view a new piece of film at night. And in the morning, a new piece of music will be ready for it. Prokofiev works like a clock. The clock does not run fast, nor does it run slow.”
Uncharacteristically then, Prokofiev struggled to find the final shape for this work. The extreme technical difficulty caused it to be publicly and audibly ridiculed at its first rehearsal and performance, by members of the orchestra itself, and it was determined that only a brave master like Rostropovich – who had been instrumental in saving the work from oblivion – could dream of making sense of it.
Soloist Coetzee and conductor Lo gave us an expressive and technically accomplished view of the work. The episodic nature of the writing, as if presenting a long series of dramatic or scenic vignettes, was the over-arching impression. The three movements do not build into large extended climaxes like some of Prokofiev’s other concertos, leaving the audience slightly frustrated. Coetzee had a robust but exceptionally lyrical tone that remained beautiful even under pressure of tempo or volume.
As to be expected with Lo, balance was never an issue. The lyricism and extended song-like passages were a surprise, and perhaps could have been counterbalanced with a deeper exploration of the nightmarish nocturnes and ominous machines that populate Prokofiev’s imagination. Crystal-clear finger-work and technical ease in double-stops made Coetzee’s performance a joy to experience.
Her encore of an unaccompanied Bach Cello Suite movement, was tender and moving and absolutely in tune and drew the audience into absolute concentration and focus. A memorable Sarabande.
Old and new worlds
Conductor Jonathan Lo addressed the audience after interval, reading important quotes by the composer and a few ironic and funny reviews of the early performances. Lo was heartfelt and moving in his urge to connect us with Rachmaninoff’s desire to search for beauty and meaning through music.
Rachmaninoff had wanted to write a ballet all his life, but it never materialised for him. His career as a concert pianist and conductor was demanding and many negotiations came to naught. A holiday with Mikhail Fokin (choreographer of the Russian Ballet) and virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz in Switzerland, gave the exhausted Rachmaninoff a well-deserved break, but also, new inspiration for a ballet. He would write some music in the day – in a sound-proof room as he wanted no one to hear his failed ideas – and at night he and Horowitz would read through his day’s work, or other Two Piano literature, including Rachmaninoff’s own works. Fokine died of an unexpected heart-attack, scuppering the ballet idea, but Rachmaninoff was sufficiently pleased with the work, that he completed it in Two-Piano form and full orchestration. This was to be his last autumnal joy, as he would die of cancer a few months after.
The Dances simultaneously inhabit the ‘old’ and ‘new’ worlds, being ‘Old Russian’ to the core but with a filmic element that unmistakably reflects Rachmaninoff’s new life in Hollywood. The use of saxophone and piano in the orchestra provide numerous colouristic episodes that remind at times of the inventiveness of Respighi. Lo guided the CPO through a brisk and muscular opening, softening to a tender expressive love-song with some lovely soloists from the orchestra taking the limelight.
The second movement had a sinister quality, reminding me a bit of Great Expectations, with Miss Havisham’s ballroom populated with ghosts who drifted in from a Tchaikovsky ballet. The woodwind dervishes swirled with an eerie menace disguised by a benevolent pout. The third movement underplayed the menace in favour of crisp articulation and clearly defined rhythms. Lo followed the composer’s instructions to the last, literally, allowing the Tam-Tam to build up and “laissez vibrer” – letting the instrument vibrate into the silence after the orchestra itself has already been cut-off. Unfortunately, we could not enjoy the full sonic effect, as the audience was already on its feet.
Jonathan Lo has certainly become one of Cape Town’s favourite conductors. And deservedly so.
Who: Cellist Luka Coetzee / Conductor Jonathan Lo
What: Summer Festival at the City Hall with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra
When: 25 January 2024
WS
