Cape Town pianist Leonard Duncan Hall was soloist at the Symphony Concert at Bulawayo City Hall last night, with the Municipal Orchestra under Hugh Fenn.
His well-considered and neatly turned account of Mozart’s Concerto in CK 467 was highly successful, and had alert support from the orchestra, save for a woodwind lapse in the last movement.
If his performance was intimate rather than bold, it did not matter, for Mozart, and the pianist’s singing tone, was always pleasing.
Showpiece
Weber’s Concerto stuck in F minor, however, did not respond quite as well to his sensitive and responsible treatment. It is an insubstantial work that must be taken by force as an unashamed showpiece.
The concert found the orchestra returned to form, and the strings performed with confidence and drive. They did especially well in the Musette from “The Gods go a-Begging” (a Beecham arrangement from Handel), and in a mostly vigorous performance of Haydn’s Symphony No. 102 in B Flat.