Piano Cello Duo Classic of Africa started badly, but ended with me tjanking for joy.

Polina Burdokova (cello) and Kerryn Wisniewski (piano — with my bud professor Leonhard Praeg turning the pages) were great, but the first piece, a cello sonata composed by Wits prof Jeanne Zaidel-Rudholph sounded – to my rof ear – really cr*p!

All jerky and crazy, like a score from a horror movie. My mind drifted … I felt I was in a psychiatric ward, or worse, Janet Leigh in the famous shower scene from Psycho …

Woaw!

But hey, this is South African composition and we are here to be challenged by unfettered creativity.

Why? Because it’s ours and we can.

The next pieces were marvelous. And I even detected melody.

I’m not knocking composers or even suggesting that melody is necessary, but when you get it, it’s pleasing.

The composition by Jaco van der Merwe, created when he was dying from cancer, did not have a promising title: “I can hear a Swan Singing”.

But it was a play on a great classical piece and had meaningful history. By the time it was finished I was in tears.

Mention national anthems, and unless you are going to do it like Hendrix at Woodstock, I get a little switched off.

The final composition by, I think, Alan Stephenson, might not have the President jiving. But if it was meant to depict a nation awash with tears over broken promises, it succeeded mightily.

It was unique and I loved it.

Thank

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