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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 May 2000 Issue No. 481 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 May 2000 Issue No. 481
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Books Features Interview Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The voice of kings
By David Blake
In the musical heirarchies, Berlin stands high. Only Paris and Vienna can equal its contribution to 20th-century musical culture. International maestros battle like matadors to be allowed inside Berlin's saced portals. It is where the power and the affluence are. Berlin can afford the best.
This orchestra is not the mighty Philharmonic, but the other. And there is no need to sniff. The Symphonica has its own special radiance, and can also be racy and scintillating. It has an extensive repertoire ó Bach to Berio.
This concert was a sort of festal gift-offering, and Cairo responded with shrieks of appreciation.
The programme opened with Verdi's Aida Sinfonia. A strange gift because this is the Aida season, and Cairo has almost reached a state of Aida saturation. She's around in the town and will soon be out of the Pyramids.
Ramzi Yassa
But it was interesting to hear how the orchestra dealt with this much used masterpiece. They kind of surfed through it with plenty of sunlight, positively dazzling with no shadows. This Verdi made very clear in the writing. Aida is very strong meat ó this was a sort of Aida souflé. What golden tone and surface calm, but with none of the dangers lurking beneath. But everyone surfed along, enjoying the Berlin waves of tone. Imants Resnis is a forward and driving maestro. He seems to have a special sound of his own, which the orchestra obeys. Form, pattern, tempi and sound all conform to this overall style.
So much for Aida. What would he make of the Rachmaninov piano concerto no2 in C minor, Op18. This had Ramzi Yassa, Egypt's most prestigious musician, as soloist. Yassa is almost a law unto himself. His immense technical and poetic resources can illuminate almost any music a piano is called upon to deliver. The Rachmaninov is so famous it has set a style and seal upon the performance. It is a very straight case-book thing about neurosis, decadence, loss, nostalgia and with a final flourish of hope and bravery at the end ó stand up and fight.
Just a wee bit of turmoil in the playing of it would have helped dismiss a feeling of loss at what we were losing. The entire three movements were swept along, suave, lisse, polished to a degree that swept Rachmaninov along also to a region far closer to the music of Saint-Sens or Fauré. Thus the storm-tossed place where, in spite of the lull and peace of the goegeous tunes, was soon to crumble to ruins.
As we entered the Beethoven Symphony no5, the orchestra seemed high-tuned and ready for anything. But was it ready for the fifth symphony? Nearly everyone knows the senario ó it is Peace and War and what happens when fate knocks at the door and you are not ready to open. The writing is spare and full of sinew, with rare opportunities for light. Fate is always in a hurry, and so is Symphony no5, and certainly was Resnis who drove it at full speed.
The Berlin Symphony uncoiled itself like an athlete primed and ready for action. Resnis tore off down the streches past competitors, oblivious to the cheering crowd, and full over the finishing line ó first, a world record.
There is nothing more to say about such expertise than thank you.
But where was the insightful struggle that would have added that extra special spice ó equilibrium?
Duos de piano: Jouer à quatre mains et à deux pianos, Jeffrey Grice and Laurent Cabasso, Cairo Opera House Main Hall, 6 May
There is nothing that beats a piano, except perhaps, two pianos. Unfortunately the vast dimensions of the modern concert grand and its special sound-vibes sometimes make two pianos a bit too much. Even four hands loose on a single instrument can mean the sound becomes unclear, complex at the edges, with everything in danger of evaporating in sheer volume.
With two individual pianos separated by space, things are clearer. And the two players at this concert, Jeffrey Grice and Laurent Cabasso, were alert to the two-piano dangers. These players on two instruments move in deep waters, churning up big ocean rollers fit to sink a ship. But they also swim in shallow seas, and the sounds they make can be as delicate as a mountain stream.
Their sounds are very beautiful. Instead of what happens in this sort of music, an aggressive din, we often had clear and intimate sounds. So from the beginning to the end, it was a joyful concert. The twin giants sang their duets like vocal melodies instead of a wall of indistinct noise and in the Mozart that began the concert, variations in C major, K501, the two players, really soloists, joined together at a single piano for their own pleasure. They were strong, individual players, and made an immediate impression of force and difference of outlook, joining together not just for themselves but for the audience. Clear was their intense desire to win sympathy for their outlook as players.
It soon became apparent that Grice was histrionic. His thrust and tempi were dominant, yet Cabasso was an eminence in his own right. It was interesting how they brought their different tones and programmes into such a sharp, immediate confrontation with the listeners.
The Mozart piece set a pattern of clarity followed throughout the concert. Like the performance of another recent visitor to Cairo, Victoria Kogan, it seemed each note sang sharp, clear but like crystal belonging to the chain of musical phrase. Very soon the players had the audience rapt and attentive.
Jeffrey Grice (left) and Laurent Cabasso (right)
Then came Brahms, his variations on a theme of Haydn's. The players opened this in grandly simple, spacious style, showing two pianos are better than four hands. The so-loving atmosphere of Brahms was spaced out with cathedral-like dimensions, informal but with immense dignity.
Every part of the music was completely and clearly drawn. Brahms the philosopher had been etched with diamond-like clarity and speed when the mystery of gently rocking variations was reached. Everything gradually dissolved into the air, even better than with an orchestra. It brought tears of joy and hope, like a benediction through the spaces of the opera house.
We had to make obeisance before the king of instruments. There they were, the two large and massive creatures dissolving themselves into sheer beauty for our benefit, with Grice and Cabasso as the willing vessels of magic. The king was gone. No orchestra was needed, nor performing maestro with a stick. Four hands and two pianos did it all.
Brahms gradually gave way to Ravel's La valse, which is some leap. The piano growled its primeval, basso-profundo tones. Like the Brando film, the music lurched drunkenly around, communicating like decadent jewelry, flashing and fleshy. Both divine and fear-inducing, the waltz became an impulse to religious ecstasy. Ravel's orchestra needs to be as explicit as the eye of the piano, camera-like, is. Through a thunderstorm comes gunfire, La valse makes its ascent into hell, shining brightly but deadly.
After a pause, during which we were able to resume equilibrium after the waltz of the damned, we had more Ravel, this time the five pieces of the Mother Goose Suite.
There is no gunfire in these sounds. Through veils of delicate piano sound came the Sleeping Beauty, and then the other Beauty, of the Beast, and finally the story ends in the leafy beauties of Fontainbleau. The players even brought clarity to the fairy-tale piece.
Last was Rachmaninov, with Suite No 2 op 17. It is a piece of mystery and sleight of hand, or of four hands, really, and two pianos. It makes no difference, eight hands or two pianos, because if Rachmaninov is in virtuoso mood, it is best to leave to be sure of fresh air. His demands from player and instrument are sadistic.
This strange piece was all finger and wrist, lightness and movement, impossible speeds and yards of embroidery. The players coped with everything. They never faltered.
There seemed to be military marches, never sweet or sugary, the players moved through labyrinths of strange foliage, jungle-like and never rational sounding.
Hopefully the pianistic colossus would gently unleash one of his hip melodies for the listener. Finally he does. It's a strange tune, large-limbed like everything about him -- his feet must have been as large as his hands. Grice and Cabasso went through this melody like high-wire performers at a circus. One slip, after all, and you're dead.
After an endless fluttering of four hands on two pianos, the butterflies of Rachmaninov all melted away. The audience was left to shout for more. The evening had been triumphant for Jeffrey Grice and Laurent Cabasso. In spite of the fire and thunder of Rachmaninov, in Brahms and Mozart they had even introduced silence.
