Amal Choucri Catta is at it again Symphonic concerts: Cairo Symphony Orchestra, conductor Kjell Seim, piano soloist Steffen Horn from Norway, Cairo Symphony Orchestra, conductor Steven Lloyd, piano soloist Mushira Issa; Cairo Opera House Main hall, 3 and 10 March, respectively, 8pm Among the numerous symphonic concerts featured at the Cairo Opera House, the one on 3 March, though it took place two weeks ago, should not go unnoticed. Symphonic concerts are usually performed on Saturdays at the Main Hall and have lately turned into a popular event. Local and foreign audiences have gradually been growing in numbers, due to the improvement of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra's performances under the excellent guidance of Maestro Steven Lloyd. Likewise, the choice of foreign guest conductors has been increasingly successful, the appearance of the renowned Norwegian conductor Kjell Seim and the famous Norwegian pianist Steffen Horn on 3 March being a case in point. Both were magnificent: their presence on the Cairo Opera stage recalled the unforgettable show of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt Norway had presented at the Sound and Light Theatre on the Giza plateau on 26 and 27 October 2006. At the Opera's Main Hall, the concert opened with the sparkling overture of Gioachino Rossini's Barber of Seville, introducing one of the composer's famous passages usually intended to still a chattering audience and arouse expectation. Once the attention was well and truly captured, Rossini usually went on to charm with a catchy tune, guaranteed to set feet tapping, for he was a master of the spectacular effect, building up to a grand finale for full orchestra. In this overture, just as in many others, he catches the spirit of the plot that is to unfold on stage. Rossini's immense vitality is punctuated by touches of Mozartian tenderness and nourished by an inexhaustible flow of melody. Once he wrote, "Delight must be the aim and basis of this art: simple melody, clear rhythm." Rhythm and melody were beautifully enhanced by the extraordinary baton of Kjell Seim, Norway's most sought-after conductor for concert, opera, music theatre and ballet. He is a favourite guest conductor with the Norwegian philharmonic and symphonic orchestras, as well as with the Norwegian state opera orchestra and symphonic orchestras throughout Scandinavia. He is furthermore music director of Norway's Kristiansund Opera, with an extensive annual production of operas and ballets. Kjell Seim gave us a ravishing performance: it was a joy to watch his expressive hands, his outstanding baton fluidly communicating with the orchestra, who were enraptured by his Barber, twinkling and gleaming from the opening to the last Tutti. Leaving Sevilla and sunny Spain, Kjell Seim took his Cairene audience to his Norwegian homeland, giving them Edvard Grieg's piano Concerto in A-minor, Opus 16, with young Steffen Horn as soloist. Born in 1976, he started playing the piano aged six, studied in Bergen and Oslo and graduated with honours in 2002. He won several prizes and is one of the main representatives of a new generation of pianists. Edvard Grieg's A-minor concerto is a rather popular, youthful composition, filled with exciting major and minor moods and colours reminiscent of Auroras Borealis, luminous northern streaks of light shining in the night sky. It should be mentioned that we are commemorating, this year, the centenary of Edvard Grieg's death in 1907. The concerto opens with a crescendo drum roll, a loud A-minor chord from the orchestra as the pianist storms down the keyboard in octaves and chords, followed by rising arpeggios. Then comes the first theme on woodwind and horns, the figures on strings responding as the piano takes up the theme, starkly at first, then embellishing it with more rippling arpeggios. The tempo quickens and the piano becomes more playful, while subsiding into a heartfelt second theme on cellos. The piano expands on this new melody with a bravura solo passage that leads to a faster orchestra theme. By this time the audience realises that Steffen Horn is a young virtuoso with a particular sensitivity. One is swept along by the unabashed exuberance, the glorious musicality of his touch. He gave us free-floating, liquid Arabesques, quiet trills and turns and shimmering harmonies. The audience cheered him, calling him back on stage several times, asking for an encore which he delivered with charm and elegance. The second part of the concert was dedicated to the French Hector Berlioz and his Symphonie Fantastique, Opus 14. Turbulent, passionate, excessive, Berlioz was the archetypal romantic. The German poet Heinrich Heine described him as "an immense nightingale, a lark as great as an eagle...his music causes me to dream of fabulous empires filled with fabulous sins". Subtitled "an episode in the life of an artist", this symphony was Berlioz's first major work and his most popular. A young musician poisons himself in a fit of lovesick despair, and the visions he has make up the stages of the composition. The five movements, from dreams and passions to the witches' Sabbath, were marvelously interpreted by the orchestra. The entire concert was an extraordinary event: the audience never stopped applauding. The latest concert on schedule was on 10 March, with the Cairo Symphonists under the baton of Steven Lloyd and soloist Mushira Issa on the piano. It opened with Ferrucio Busoni's Berceuse Elegiaque, Opus 42a, composed in 1909 and added to the author's Elegien written in 1907 for piano. The orchestra version was subtitled "the man's lullaby at his mother's coffin". It is of a meditative, somewhat avant- garde quality. In his lifetime Busoni's music elicited mixed responses. It has been increasingly admired for its visionary nature and its anticipation of many of the devices and styles of "advanced" composers. The Berceuse was followed by Ludwig van Beethoven's fourth concerto for piano and orchestra in G-major, Opus 58, with Mushira Issa passionately, lovingly, meditatively drawing life out of the keyboard, while the maestro was masterfully conducting. Beethoven returned in the second part of the concert, with the fourth symphony in B-flat major, Opus 60, a lovely work, quite well-known to audiences. It seems Beethoven had come once too often in this concert: the mood remained unchanged throughout the performance. Though perfectly interpreted and brilliantly conducted, there were no highlight. But the audience loved it anyway.
