CONCERT REVIEW: Zuk duo at McGill University's Pollack Hall (04/04/99)

CONCERT REVIEW: Zuk duo at McGill University's Pollack Hall

by Radu Palade

MONTREAL - The internationally renowned duo-piano team of Luba and Ireneus Zuk presented a concert on March 2 at Pollack Hall of the McGill Faculty of Music, in which they demonstrated their masterful playing and their familiarity with both classical and modern idioms.

Once again this sister-brother team, both accomplished pianists, confirmed their reputation as one of the most exciting piano duos committed to introducing new works by Ukrainian and Canadian composers.

The program contained two works from the 19th and early 20th centuries: "Fantasy," Op. 11, by Max Bruch, and "Huit Danses des Iles Grécques" by Yannis Constantinidis. The other pieces on the program alternated between works by Canadian and Ukrainian composers: "Hopak - Piéce de Concert" (1993) by Halyna Ovcharenko, "Rhapsody" (1994) by Frederic Robert Charles Clarke, Sonatina, Op. 20, by Ihor Bilohrud and "Elements of Nature" (1990) by Wolfgang Bottemberg.

Bruch's "Fantasy" consists of three linked sections which, as toccata, aria and fugue, recall the creations of great masters of organ music. The work gave the two performers an opportunity to display its tight structure. In "Hopak - Piéce de Concert" by Ovcharenko, they displayed their precision in rendering complex rhythms, in alternation with lyrical sections reminiscent of ritual songs. Sonatina, the work by the other Ukrainian composer, Bilohrud (1916-1997), also is based on folk material, combining these with innovative harmonic structures.

The two compositions by Canadian composers were both specially written and dedicated to Luba and Ireneus Zuk. Frederic Robert Charles Clarke is professor emeritus at Queen's University, and organist-choirmaster in Kingston, Ontario. His Rhapsody exists in two earlier versions (for cello and piano, and for organ duet), but the composer felt that in its final form as a composition for duo piano, in the Zuks' sensitive interpretation, the inherent expressive content could be more clearly articulated.

Mr. Bottemberg, for many years professor of composition at Concordia University of Montreal, took his inspiration for "Elements of Nature" from the beauty perceived in the structural order of nature. In its three movements ("Water," "Stone," "Air"), the composition treats aspects of matter through musical materials that can symbolize atomic structures.

Thus, the first movement uses a symmetrical hexatonic scale characterized by tonal instability; its inherent fluidity is then used to suggest different aspects of water, from fog and rain to calm and stormy seas. In the second movement ("Stone"), a more compact symmetrical octotonic scale is used which leads to dense harmonic structures. As a contrast, the last movement uses the light and airy pentatonic and whole-tone scales for a creation with moments of heightened sensitivity.

Prof. Bottemberg was able to create in this piece a fine musical alchemy, interpreting orders of matter perceived beyond their mere appearances, a musical conception to which the Zuks responded in a sensitive exploration of its complex resources.

For the last piece on the program, the suite "Huit Danses des Iles Grécques" by Constantinidis, folklorist elements provided the inspiration. The two pianists knew how to adjust their performance to the neo-classic sensibility of the work. Two encores, played expertly in the same vivacious mood and displaying the same flawless technique, closed the memorable performance by these two first-class musicians.

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