PETER
WILIAMS : Serbian
virtuoso pianist, Sonja Radojkovic, making her first New
Zealand tour, will present a concert
in the Napier Municipal Teatre, at 7.30 pm, on Tuesday,
August 26, as well as recitals in Plamerston North, Hamilton
and Masterton. Radojkovic graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky
Conservatory and today between her many public appearances,
teaches and lectures at universites in both Belgrade and
Sarajevo. She has toured in Russia, Sweden, Greece and
Spain and following the New Zealand recitals, will play
for audiences in Canada and USA.
Hailed troughout Serbia and Montenegro (formerly Yugoslavia),
Rossia and Macedonia, last year a Belgrade critic spoke
of her "volcanic temperament and tender Salvic soul".
She has been praised in her own country for her "brilliant
piano technique wich makes Radojkovic a new force in our
musical life" The programme for her Napier concert
is one witch will put her
formidable technique to the test with Beethoven's monumental
Appassionata Sonata and Variations in C Minor to be preformed.
In addition the programme will include Partita No 6 in
E Minor by
Bach, the Prokofiev Sonata No 3 and Seven Balkan Dances
by Yugoslavien composer Marko Tajcevic.
Radojkovic has recorded (On Serbian CD labels), music
by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and later this year on Belgrade
she will record a CD of keyboard music by Greek-born composers,
including music
by former Napier resident John Psathas, now Lecturer in
Composition at Victoria University of Wellington.
A stunning blonde whirlwind swept
trough the Akaroa Gallery last Sunday in the form
of vivacious Serbian pianist Sonja Radojkovic.
Born in Belgrade she gainde Masters Degrees at Tchaikovsky
Conservatoire in Moscow and at the Faculty of Music
Arts in Belgrade.Her musical interpretation of an
extensive repertoire has been decribed by one professor
of music as having elasticity, vividness, strong
will and complete sincerity.
This was evident from the first crashing chords
of Bach's Organ Toccata in C major transposed for
piano by Busoni. If one keyboard and pedale can
create such tumultuous sound, then three organ manuals
and pedals must be an overwhelming experience.
One was left wondering how much was Busoni, and
how much was Bach. From Bach to Beethoven's Sonata
No 21, oopus 53 wich was dedicated to his longstuding
friend Count Ferdinand von Waldestein and was composed,
incredibly when Beethowen was almost totally deaf.
Here the first movement Allegro con brio is
crammed with semi-quavers and while one or
two may have been lost along the way it did nothing
to dampen appreciation of Ms Radojkovic's
exuberant temperament.
As could he expected in a programme of such a passionate
artist, romanticist Chopin was included
in what is probably his least comfortable form,
the classical sonata. However, Sonata No 2 in B
minor, opus 35 gave Ms Radojkovic a great oportunity
to alow full expression of her emotional range.
The frenetic finale Presto was dealt with masterly
technique.
The final work chosen was a group of Slavonic dances
composed by Serbian Vasilije Mokranjac.
These was most attractive and played with natural
understanding.
The enthusiasm of the audience to Ms Radojkovic's
recital was rewarded with two Chopin encores.
First the ever popular Fantasie-Impromptu, and then
Waltz, opus 64, No 2, both in C sharp minor,
and both highlighting her confident 'temps libre'
style of playing wich has attracted audiences around
the world
VISITIN PIANIST GIVIEN
STANDING OVATION by
Margatet Christensen
Out of the new Yugoslavia direct
from Belgrade, there arrived pianist Sonja Radojkovic
on a short
tour of smaller North Island centres.Thanks to
the strong promotional effort of Howars Smith,
Radojkovic
came and conquered a large audience at the Wesley
wing of Aratoi.
They gave her a standing ovation, a tribute to
an amazing musician in a wide-ranging pregramme
wich
introduced some works seldom heard before here,
if ever.
It is always a recomendation that a musician comes
our way as a graduate of the world-famous Tchaikowsky
Conservatorium in Moscow. Music lovers will remember
fellow graduate Kazakh violinist Marat Bisangaliev
some three years ago. The Russian style of executant
music is bold, dynamic, big in concept and presentation
,
yet encompassing the most sensitive and lyrical
gradations of feeling from grand passion to delicacy.
All this and more was evidenced in the powerful
yet controlled playing of Radojkovic troughout
a hugely generous
programme. In consisted of the Bach Partita or
Suite No 6 in E minor, Beethoven's Appassionata
Sonata folowed
by his 32 Variations in C minor on an original
theme, Mendelssohn's Variations Serieuses in D
minor, Prokofiev's
Sonata No 3 and a set of Seven Balkan Dances by
Marko Tajcevic (1900-1984).
The Bach Partita, originally written for baroque
harpsichord was presented as unashamedly a pianistic
interpretation.
The artist use pedalling constatly but with such
control that the melodic lines with their intricate,
florid ornament, were
never blurred.
Her Bach was more powerful and grand than this
reviewer can ever remember hearing . The Appassionata
presented even
more of a chalenge, especially to the Wesley grand
piano. The power of Radojkovic's physical approach,
coupled with
virtuoso technique cried out for the tonal amplitude
of a full concert grand.
Admittedly the recnetly acquired Wesley grand
is a warm instrument, perfectly adequate for most
purposes, but by the end
of the evening one or two of the strings were
sounding distincly wiry.
There are no compromises with Radojkovic. She
is at home with the greatest composers, intelectually.
How she produces
the full range of dynamic contrasts, tempi and
touch at the same time as maingtaing a presence
of peace is a wonder.
Nothing is uneven, no inner parts carrying the
melodic line lost. The prestissmo staccato passages
concluding the Beethoven
Variations left the audience over whelmed.
The same followed for the seldom-heard Mendelssohn
Variations. What he called "a peewish"
developed intimations of
the fairy-like Midsummer Night's Dream Music,
The Romantic melancholy passages overlaying delicacy
on top of steely
streingth.
Prokofiev's single movement, early Sonata prefiguret
some of the romace of the Romeo and Juliet ballet
music, in small
snatches, and there were hints of folk song. The
complex rhythms tossed between the pianist's hands
produced a blur of
motion and a resolute ostinato in the middle section
again signalled her huge resource of power.
A set of Balkan Dances 20th-century composer Tajcevic
acknowledged the rhythms and melodies of the area,
rather in the
maner of Bartok. Short, compex pieces, they aroused
traditional references known by the eminent musicologist-comopser
and were most attractive, varying from pastoral
pipe-sounds to heavy peasant-style kolo dance
evocations.
Sonja Radojkovic responded to her ecstatic audience
with three Chopin encores, treated no less seriosly
than the main
programme. There is no doubht she will be welcomed
back should she return next year, wich is a possibility.
Otaki's
All Saints Church was filed to capacity to hear Serbian
concert pianist Sonja Radojkovic recently. Ms Radojkovic
ffrom Belgrade, was staying briefly in Otaki before beginning
a month long concert tour of New Zealand, her NZ manager
Jamie Bull had arranged for her to use the piano at All
Saints to practice on and the offer of the concert came
from this.
Ms Radojkovic began the concert with Vasa Mokranjac's
Dances a piece she decribed as 'having fun' before moving
on to the more serious Beethoven Sonata ' Waldstein' and
Chopin's B-minor Sonata. As the final chords faded, the
audience responded with a standing ovation wich brought
a selection from Scubert for an encore.
She was only too happy to pass on some tips to a Chinese
exchange student from Otaki College.
'Music is emotion' - she told the boy. 'First always give
emotion, two - the chin, shoulders, bum keep soft, and
three- fingertips slide (over the keys), not poke.'
Last Tuesday was the coldest day this winter, but between
155-165 people, of all ages filled the church to hear
the hour-long concert. Several quite young children sat
quietly troughout the concert, mesmerized by Ms Radojkovic's
playing.
Ms Bull recent arrival in Otaki, look after ang manages
New Zealand and overseas artists. She met Ms Radojkovic
at the and of her NZ tour last year and had organised
her concert for this tour.
'I am delighted to be able to contribute something tomy
new community.', she said.
