The final concert of Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's New Zealand Herald Premier series was a night to remember. A well-filled Town Hall must have anticipated as much when the urbane Geraint Martin, chairman of the APO Board, came on stage to salute conductor Eckehard Stier before the German's last appearance as music director.
Actions followed words with the presentation of a 2015 All Black shirt ("Alles Schwarz," as Martin wittily put it), embossed with the signatures of the APO players.
The ensuing Beethoven B flat Piano Concerto could have been an anti-climax. Far from the composer's finest work, it was more convincing than usual tonight, thanks to the orchestral polish and the well-turned, no-nonsense pianism of Daniel de Borah.
In among the irritatingly facile passagework of an opening Allegro, one was pleasantly surprised by the frisson of excursions into unexpected keys, and totally won over by de Borah's storm of a cadenza. Written by Beethoven well after the original concerto, these few minutes transported us into a new age, as if by time machine.
De Borah found a meeting place between Haydn and Chopin in the florid writing of the second movement, while conductor and orchestra, finely nuanced in this Adagio, propelled us with gusto through a bouncing Finale.
