Beethoven treat worth four times the price
The audience on Saturday night was at capacity. It was a mostly older audience, as is often the case at classical concerts, but some families with young children were evident as well.
The auditorium was comfortably warm. The instruments, like us, play best then. The sleek, glossy black Steinway dominated the stage and the room. We settled in our seats in anticipation and were rewarded with a concert worth four times the price of the tickets.
The stage was also at capacity with 46 of the 77 possible musicians in the Nelson Symphony Orchestra (NSO).
We were all there for Beethoven, specifically the overture of Creatures of the Prometheus, the Piano concerto No 3 and Symphony No 5.
I was impressed with the Piano Concerto No 3. Buz Bryant-Greene is a true master at the piano.
The first movement, as the programme explained, ‘‘expresses the typically defiant Beethoven spirit’’. In the second movement, Largo, Bryant-Greene played the same musical phrases, first in the aggressive mood of the first movement, then the exact same notes in a delicate romantic mood, being the theme of the Largo.
It was fascinating to hear the comparative treatments under his hand.
Bryant-Greene also mastered the series of runs, which span the entire length of the keyboard.
I have heard that Beethoven composed these to show off and intimidate other composers and musicians of the time, because Beethoven’s hands were big enough to cope. These are so demanding and so frequent that, as my companion for the evening, Roger Bray, commented, ‘‘Beethoven should be the patron saint of piano tuners’’.
The enthusiastic conductor, Mick Dowrick, deserves a mention as well. His feet literally left the stage a couple of times, such was his enthusiasm for Beethoven.
We finished the evening on a light note, when the orchestra directed the applause towards the bust of Beethoven at centre back