Soloists Outstanding In Prom Concert

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30667, 5 February 1965, Page 12

Soloists Outstanding In Prom Concert

The last of this season’s proms concerts was given in the Civic Theatre last evening with Mr Juan Matteucci conducting, and with Mr Cyril Smith and Miss Phyllis Sellick as the soloists in two piano concertos. The programme went away to a vigorous and thoroughly satisfying beginning with three of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances, Op. 46. Freshness and spontaneity of approach with lively tonal quality and flexible riding of the rhythmic wave brought the music warmly to life, setting a bright and fitting atmosphere for the whole concert.

Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick again compelled high admiration for their outstanding skill and sensitive artistry in their performance of Mozart’s Concerto in E flat for Two Pianos and Orchestra. The chamber .orchestra played with charming finesse. Poised balance brought out all fine details; shapely and gracious lines, interweaving with rich autumnal colouring, gave freshness to this beautifullystylish and enchanting performance.

The accord in weight of touch, in poetic sensitivity, and in matching of tonal quality between the two pianists is astonishing in its seeming perfection of detail. The first part of the programme ended with the Overture to the Mastersingers.

Rich outpouring of tone was heard at the beginning and the playing throughout the work had nobility and grandeur. The brass section, with excellent balance, produced many thrilling effects. However, Mr Matteucci has so trained the orchestra that there is no reason now to single out particular sections for special mention. Excellent intonation, confidence in attack and in precision, and interdependence in the subteltiea at balance and clarity

make the orchestra a most competently prepared medium for artistic and vital direction, and it is certainly getting that. Two Argentinian Dances by Julian Aguirre were splendidly suited to this excellent proms programme. The first, langorous in character, had a shimmering effect and the second suggested gay swirl of bright colours. Both had fetching melodies and rhythms creating refreshing atmosphere. They were played with deft skill. Poulenc’s Concerto in D minor for Two Pianos and Orchestra was given a fascinating performance in which Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick showed further astonishing versatility in technique and artistry. Lovely sounds, piquant harmonies, wisps of phrasing, searingly bright flashes, all were conveyed by the soloists and the orchestra with complete unity of expression and with poetic and dramatic sensibility of the highest order. No soloists at any proms concerts here have given such sheer joy as have Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick, and their work will be remembered with lasting gratitude and admiration. It is also most gratifying to record that the orchestra gave such first-rate support to artists of this eminence. Carlo Alberto Pizzini’s composition, “Al Hemonte," descriptive of the Piedmontese people and countryside, rounded off this ideal proms programme in the grand manner. It began with broadly sweeping vigour with the full resources of the orchestra called upon. This led to a charmingly pastoral lyricism and then ended in music of hitting strength, complexity and stress. This is a grand composition both for its pictorial imagery and for the cleverness of the writing. —C.F.B.