On April 20, Friends of Music presented a concert by Anzel Gerber (cello) and Anneke Lamont (piano).

This performance by two musicians from Gauteng turned out to be a duo recital of the highest quality. Anzel Gerber is a 28-year-old cellist who has won a string of awards and distinctions, and it is easy to hear why. She produces a broad, mellow tone and in rapid passages has an unforced dexterity. And her unaffected commitment to the music she plays is obvious to all.

Anneke Lamont, married and the mother of three children, graduated in music at the University of Cape Town 20 years ago. She is an experienced pianist of great skill and good judgment, and her ensemble playing is admirable, as was demonstrated in her partnership with Anzel Gerber.

The two performers offered a rather esoteric programme to the Friends of Music audience at the Durban Jewish Centre. They opened with Debussy’s late Sonata in D minor, written a couple of years before the composer’s death in 1918, a forward-looking work with some brilliant, almost experimental, effects for both instruments. The playing was immaculate, with the cellist showing great élan.

Richard Strauss’s early Sonata in F major, Op. 6, is a lovely composition, full of sweeping, rather sentimental melodies and strong rhythms. Again, the performance was totally convincing and enjoyable.

More unfamiliar territory was covered after the interval with Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70, written originally for horn and piano, and Shostakovich’s Sonata in D minor Op. 40, a typically atmospheric and sometimes abrasive work by the Russian master.

This duo recital was an evening for connoisseurs, and the audience greatly enjoyed it. - Michael Green

Friends of Music gratefully acknowledges sponsorship from Non-Ferrous Metals and Quad Triangle with support funding from Business and Arts South Africa (BASA) as well as sponsorship from the National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund.