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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 April - 3 May 2000 Issue No. 479 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 April - 3 May 2000 Issue No. 479
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Nobody did it like grandpa
By David Blake
Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève; Between Dusk and Dawn; world première; choreography by Giorgio Mancini; music by Nader Abbassi; Cairo Opera House Main Hall, 1 April
Easter Concert:; The Men's Choir of the Honved Ensemble; Cairo Symphony Orchestra; Cairo Opera House, Main Hall, 16 April
If Easter be an occasion of change, of metamorphosis through transfiguration to ultimate revelation, then this Easter concert was true to form -- it was as fresh as breath from a new dawn. It was a brave programme with, centrepiece, the piano concerto of Mozart No 20 in D minor K166, the soloist -- somebody called Victoria Kogan.
It happens to be the migratory season. The annual pianistic visitations are in full flood, but at least the music of the last few concertos in Mozart's series, dedicated to the piano, need careful, attentive playing, being full of booby traps and sudden beauties. So she came out to her instrument, sat down and sliced through the air of the much-played D minor like a fish that flies into the sunlight then flops down into the dinghy you are rowing beneath, a creature shining in two elements -- air and water.
But this particular being did not flop. She played her piece and sped off like a goddess, an event unto herself, 22 years old and absolutely, comfortingly, assured. Never a strained moment or an attitude held too long. She seems simply not to be a pianist. She was an occurrence that scattered notes called Mozart about in the air. He probably would have loved her. The last great C major concerto was written for someone like her.
If you want to see what a real princess looks like, then take a look at Kogan. Her sculpted facial areas do not smile -- but she looks, and her look is scarifying and refreshing -- not a touch of toothpaste. And the notes she makes? It all comes from inside, but it goes to the outside. There are hardly any pauses in her endless arcs and fan-shaped Mozartian displays, yet it is never light or feathery. One has to go back to Lipatti or Horovitz for such keyboard cleanliness, and it is never jolie. Her entire presentation of the D minor was newly thought. The result -- Amadeus shone.
Her background? Grandfather Leonid Kogan, mother Rita Kogan, uncle Pavel Kogan. Musically we are what we come from, and she comes from the top.
Cairo is going through one of its phases. Does anyone care about music or anything else?
To Egmont, a name and a mountain which is also a volcano, Beethoven wrote an overture, and it is one of his best occasional pieces. Five chords introduce it, followed by a mass of crackling activity. Ahmed El-Saedi gave it an immediate grandeur which never left the piece or the entire concert. He was at his concentrated best this night. The orchestra was burnished and deep-toned -- singing not shouting. And Egmont suits Saedi at his present moment. Beethoven's music is full of beautiful songs and dramatic lashes. The soprano, Klarchan, has great arias that have entered the concert repertoire and have made her a national heroine.
Easter thoughts make one pay loving respects to the Cairo Symphony Orchestra. It has gone through tough times under its various maestros. It is a fluid organisation yet has come to represent a varied repertory of often difficult music under hard rehearsal conditions. Its battle motto is simple -- survive. And in one form or another the Cairo Symphony Orchestra has done this, and come to represent a sound, secure, professional and dependable investment which makes it the most important single item of Cairo's entire musical life. It even sometimes rises above the battle which rages around it, and its existence has become extremely moving. It is a live thing of pleasure. It is needed and, by many, loved.
The final offering of this pleasurable Easter concert was Cherubini's Requiem for male choir and orchestra. He and Beethoven were contemporaries, but he lived beyond Beethoven to 1842. They often share the same grandeur of making sudden, dramatic, unexpected key changes in their orchestral chords, which gave Cherubini his only justification for comparison with the master.
But Cherubini was great -- big. His compositions were secure, rock-like, vertical masses of sound from deep to high. Beethoven was horizontal, ranging everywhere like a river flowing into the ocean of the future.
This Requiem was given with full support by the opera -- orchestra, maestro and choir, and the full 42 strong Honved male voices of Budapest, under Andras Toth. This ensemble is really a joy to hear. From sea bed to mountain crest soared Cherubini's music, and the choir revelled in soft, unusually high areas and grumbling dangers from the deep.
Fortunately a full house was able to hear that, as well as putting forth decibles of stirring fortisimi. They were being given a chance to be intimate, sad and human. The performance was given an ovation. The Honved Choir showed one of music's oldest truths. If you have the power of song, you do not need speech.
