Chocolate and red roses?
Concert: Valentine's Day Concert, Manoel Theatre
Just imagine! I almost didn't go. An orchestral concert under Michael Laus's baton on Tuesday advertised as a St Valentine's Day Concert conjured up stalls full of couples looking into each other's eyes and holding hands and boxes with more of the same plus the added bonus of large boxes of Baci and long-stemmed red roses prominently displayed for all to see... I honestly thought that I would feel as out of place as a tewma fuq soufflé and had I not been irresistibly drawn to the programme I would have given it a miss and left the theatre to the starry-eyed lovers to enjoy.
Despite the off-putting marketing ploy used by the Manoel Theatre management the audience consisted mainly of the usual diehards, musical buffs, aficionados and old trouts like myself; all of the type that will never clap between movements, and while, thankfully, there was no rustle of Bacis being unwrapped or a red rose anywhere in sight, it was sad that the lovely Manoel had to resort to such depths to try to entice new blood in its audiences. The theatre was not full by any means which is such a shame as the concert was utterly splendiferous from start to finish. Mind you, instead of chocolate in evidence, we had some wonderful cooking smells invading the theatre airspace from the new restaurant in the Palazzo Bonici next door; a Sicilian restaurant whose décor in the bar area and the courtyard is as questionable as its cuisine is delicious.
Having got that gripe out of the way as a reminder to those whose duty it is to run the place in a dignified manner as Malta's national theatre, I can concentrate on the glorious music; three pieces that I know and love very much - Kodaly's fritillaric Dances of Galanta, Prokofiev's quirky and passionate Piano Concerto No. 3, played by Ukrainian Oleg Poliansky, and Brahms's monumentally earthshattering Symphony No. 4, all conducted by Michael Laus.
The concerto was magnificent. All too often Prokofiev's music is overshadowed by his more popular Romeo and Juliet suites and his diabolically difficult five piano concertos are overlooked. The third in C Major is the most popular as it the most orthodox in layout and comprehensible as compared to the fourth for the left hand and the five movements of the fifth one with its double scherzos.
The soloist and the orchestra were in perfect synch and the exquisitely crafted passages progressed seamlessly from mood to mood like a kaleidoscopic Kandinsky or Pollock; changing colours, form and emotion in a series of scintillating orchestral chords and pianistic roulades that spelled out the most lyrical of Prokofievian melodic lines. Poliansky is a strong, passionate and dazzling pianist very much of that particular Russian school who are able to interpret their national music with a passion that is unequalled and a splendour that fairly knocks you out. He was in perfect accord with Mro Laus who conducted the orchestra with verve and great attention to detail. Together, they created one of the loveliest interpretations of the concerto that I have ever heard.
I prefer the 2nd and 3rd Symphonies of Brahms to his 1st and 4th ones. They are far more genially approachable and warm. I had my serious misgivings about the National Orchestra playing the grandiose 4th in the relatively cramped area of the Manoel Theatre but I was happy to have been proved wrong. Mro Laus gave us an extraordinarily rumbustious and virile rendering of this leviathan that was full of magical moments. He steered the orchestra dexterously through waves of deep and sonorous contrapuntal complexities that resolve into flowing rivers of pure music that is Brahms's most telling hallmark with the kind of intellectual approach that lets the score speak for itself. Even in the acoustically unkind Manoel, where dynamics are extremely difficult to pull off unless one is playing solo or chamber music, the splendid, velvety, dark and emotional score shone and shimmered poetically and lyrically.
An unforgettable andante moderato with its atmospheric pizzicatos and elegiac sweeps of pure musical emotion that miraculously are all neatly contained within the cerebral conundrums dreamt up by the last of the classicists, Johannes Brahms, whose music has always got under my skin, like the music of no other composer.
Kodaly's Dances of Galanta were tackled with a great deal of nervous energy that made them strangely exciting and extraordinarily attractive. The orchestration is scintillatingly colourful and full marks go to the wind players who gave their all to those lovely solo passages, melodically and warmly giving brightness to the sweeping and sublime adagios that punctuated the gypsy rhythms of the delightful dances themselves.
Pity all the lovers the Manoel management thought they would attract were not there, but they really should give it a try next time the National Orchestra plays; minus the Baci and the roses of course...
Despite the off-putting marketing ploy used by the Manoel Theatre management the audience consisted mainly of the usual diehards, musical buffs, aficionados and old trouts like myself; all of the type that will never clap between movements, and while, thankfully, there was no rustle of Bacis being unwrapped or a red rose anywhere in sight, it was sad that the lovely Manoel had to resort to such depths to try to entice new blood in its audiences. The theatre was not full by any means which is such a shame as the concert was utterly splendiferous from start to finish. Mind you, instead of chocolate in evidence, we had some wonderful cooking smells invading the theatre airspace from the new restaurant in the Palazzo Bonici next door; a Sicilian restaurant whose décor in the bar area and the courtyard is as questionable as its cuisine is delicious.
Having got that gripe out of the way as a reminder to those whose duty it is to run the place in a dignified manner as Malta's national theatre, I can concentrate on the glorious music; three pieces that I know and love very much - Kodaly's fritillaric Dances of Galanta, Prokofiev's quirky and passionate Piano Concerto No. 3, played by Ukrainian Oleg Poliansky, and Brahms's monumentally earthshattering Symphony No. 4, all conducted by Michael Laus.
The concerto was magnificent. All too often Prokofiev's music is overshadowed by his more popular Romeo and Juliet suites and his diabolically difficult five piano concertos are overlooked. The third in C Major is the most popular as it the most orthodox in layout and comprehensible as compared to the fourth for the left hand and the five movements of the fifth one with its double scherzos.
The soloist and the orchestra were in perfect synch and the exquisitely crafted passages progressed seamlessly from mood to mood like a kaleidoscopic Kandinsky or Pollock; changing colours, form and emotion in a series of scintillating orchestral chords and pianistic roulades that spelled out the most lyrical of Prokofievian melodic lines. Poliansky is a strong, passionate and dazzling pianist very much of that particular Russian school who are able to interpret their national music with a passion that is unequalled and a splendour that fairly knocks you out. He was in perfect accord with Mro Laus who conducted the orchestra with verve and great attention to detail. Together, they created one of the loveliest interpretations of the concerto that I have ever heard.
I prefer the 2nd and 3rd Symphonies of Brahms to his 1st and 4th ones. They are far more genially approachable and warm. I had my serious misgivings about the National Orchestra playing the grandiose 4th in the relatively cramped area of the Manoel Theatre but I was happy to have been proved wrong. Mro Laus gave us an extraordinarily rumbustious and virile rendering of this leviathan that was full of magical moments. He steered the orchestra dexterously through waves of deep and sonorous contrapuntal complexities that resolve into flowing rivers of pure music that is Brahms's most telling hallmark with the kind of intellectual approach that lets the score speak for itself. Even in the acoustically unkind Manoel, where dynamics are extremely difficult to pull off unless one is playing solo or chamber music, the splendid, velvety, dark and emotional score shone and shimmered poetically and lyrically.
An unforgettable andante moderato with its atmospheric pizzicatos and elegiac sweeps of pure musical emotion that miraculously are all neatly contained within the cerebral conundrums dreamt up by the last of the classicists, Johannes Brahms, whose music has always got under my skin, like the music of no other composer.
Kodaly's Dances of Galanta were tackled with a great deal of nervous energy that made them strangely exciting and extraordinarily attractive. The orchestration is scintillatingly colourful and full marks go to the wind players who gave their all to those lovely solo passages, melodically and warmly giving brightness to the sweeping and sublime adagios that punctuated the gypsy rhythms of the delightful dances themselves.
Pity all the lovers the Manoel management thought they would attract were not there, but they really should give it a try next time the National Orchestra plays; minus the Baci and the roses of course...