Saturday 23rd February 2008
Review of this concert by Philip Worth:
Over the years audiences have left at the end of DSO concerts warmed and uplifted by the lovely music they have been listening to, still sounding in their ears. After this latest event they must also have been stunned by a display of astonishing technical brilliance by Martin Cousin in his performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor. This work is notoriously one of the most difficult and challenging in the piano concerto repertoire, and has even been known to frighten off some otherwise competent performers: one lamented that he had not learned this concerto as a student when he was ‘still too young to know fear’! Even so, quite apart from live renderings, well over thirty virtuosi have recorded this piece since its composition in 1909, memorably Rachmaninov himself and the giant Vladimir Horowitz. The list also includes Alexis Weissenberg, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Walter Gieseking, Shura Cherkassky, Emil Gilels, David Helfgott, Martha Argerich and Howard Shelley (Chris’s brother). Quite unfazed by such a provenance Martin Cousin hypnotized us with his pianistic sorcery and it comes as no surprise to learn from the programme notes that his were David Helfgott’s ‘hands’ in the film ‘Shine’ (one wonders whether Martin ever regretted that the rest of him did not subsequently appear on the silver screen!)
The first half of an excellently programmed concert sounded a Scandinavian note throughout. Sibelius’ tone poem ‘Finlandia’ drives on with irresistible force, its introduction and finale exultant, its hymn-like middle section sublime. At first entitled ‘Finland Awakes’ it entered into the nation’s very marrow overnight, a vibrant expression of the country’s pride in itself. DSO’s timpanist, Richard Baron-Tait, had a whale of a time on his drums, and no doubt felt, with some justice, that he was in the driving seat for this piece! The transition from Sibelius to Grieg was easy. The incidental music to Henrik Ibsen’s play ‘Peer Gynt’ has always been a universal favourite both because of its distinctively Norwegian flavour and also its high spirited melodic invention. After the pure lyricism of ‘Morning’, ‘Death of Ase’, and ‘Anitra’s Dance’, the powers of darkness unleashed by ‘The Hall of the Mountain King’ come as something of a shock – but a delicious one! And finally one wondered why Carl Nielsen’s work is not better known and more frequently performed. His tone poem ‘Helios’, describing the passage of the sun, from dawn to setting, through a cloudless sky over the Aegean Sea, has a mystical, unique magic.
Footnote:- We had a good audience for this concert, but there’s room for more. Spread the word about what a mine of super music Tom Loten and his DSO makes available in our area.
Over the years audiences have left at the end of DSO concerts warmed and uplifted by the lovely music they have been listening to, still sounding in their ears. After this latest event they must also have been stunned by a display of astonishing technical brilliance by Martin Cousin in his performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor. This work is notoriously one of the most difficult and challenging in the piano concerto repertoire, and has even been known to frighten off some otherwise competent performers: one lamented that he had not learned this concerto as a student when he was ‘still too young to know fear’! Even so, quite apart from live renderings, well over thirty virtuosi have recorded this piece since its composition in 1909, memorably Rachmaninov himself and the giant Vladimir Horowitz. The list also includes Alexis Weissenberg, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Walter Gieseking, Shura Cherkassky, Emil Gilels, David Helfgott, Martha Argerich and Howard Shelley (Chris’s brother). Quite unfazed by such a provenance Martin Cousin hypnotized us with his pianistic sorcery and it comes as no surprise to learn from the programme notes that his were David Helfgott’s ‘hands’ in the film ‘Shine’ (one wonders whether Martin ever regretted that the rest of him did not subsequently appear on the silver screen!)
The first half of an excellently programmed concert sounded a Scandinavian note throughout. Sibelius’ tone poem ‘Finlandia’ drives on with irresistible force, its introduction and finale exultant, its hymn-like middle section sublime. At first entitled ‘Finland Awakes’ it entered into the nation’s very marrow overnight, a vibrant expression of the country’s pride in itself. DSO’s timpanist, Richard Baron-Tait, had a whale of a time on his drums, and no doubt felt, with some justice, that he was in the driving seat for this piece! The transition from Sibelius to Grieg was easy. The incidental music to Henrik Ibsen’s play ‘Peer Gynt’ has always been a universal favourite both because of its distinctively Norwegian flavour and also its high spirited melodic invention. After the pure lyricism of ‘Morning’, ‘Death of Ase’, and ‘Anitra’s Dance’, the powers of darkness unleashed by ‘The Hall of the Mountain King’ come as something of a shock – but a delicious one! And finally one wondered why Carl Nielsen’s work is not better known and more frequently performed. His tone poem ‘Helios’, describing the passage of the sun, from dawn to setting, through a cloudless sky over the Aegean Sea, has a mystical, unique magic.
Footnote:- We had a good audience for this concert, but there’s room for more. Spread the word about what a mine of super music Tom Loten and his DSO makes available in our area.