Gheorghe Zamfir

Press, 29 October 1981, Page 6

Gheorghe Zamfir

Gheorghe Zamfir at the Town Hall Auditorium, Wednesday, October 28. Reviewed by Heath Lees. You could be forgiven for expecting that an evening with Gheorghe Zamfir would consist entirely. of Zamfir’s Greatest Hits. That would be half true, since only the first half was devoted to those, funnelled of course through the merry, merry flutes of Pan. There was no programme and nothing in the way of introduction, and so one would have been quickly at sea if one had not bought all the records in advance. Even at that, the performance of “She,” the theme from “Limelight,” and even his best-known numbers seemed

simply to demonstrate how much better they are on record. Mr Zamfir chose, while playing his pipes, also to conduct the orchestra — a watered-down version of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra — and so there was often what can best be described as a certain fragility in the ensemble. To add spiritual insult to musical injury, the pseudoreligiosity of Schubert’s “Ave Maria” and the over-senti-mentalised treatment of Schumann’s “Traumerei” were about as camp as an outside kitchen. Thank heavens for the second half, where Mr Zamfir was joined by six other virtuosic and the

maestro reverted to the role of the lonely goatherd having a knees-up with some friends.

The instruments were fascinating and played with great skill, producing combinations of sound that lifted and carried. The fast,, tzi-gane-type dances and choruses were full of life, and the slower melodies were richly decorated in the real folk idiom.

It was difficult to grasp how one concert could have such a sharp division with one half such a weak brand of kitsch and the other containing such astonishing vitality. Obviously the values of record-buyers need some investigation. ’ '•