Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra launched its main New Zealand Herald Premier series with John Rimmer's Vulcan, a fanfare it commissioned 18 years ago.
Hurtling strings, piercing woodwind with foreboding brass and percussion invoked appropriately seismic blasts.
Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto is play-safe programming, but warhorses can reveal surprises with a soloist of Frank Dupree's stature. The German pianist dispensed glitter and fire with a dizzying blur of hands while poetry was paramount in the first movement cadenza.
Giordano Bellincampi and Dupree created a gladiatorial sense of contest in this massive first movement and, if the lyrical Andante pre-empted Rachmaninov, then the finale ignited almost Stravinskian fireworks.
Encore time was memorable with Dupree's improvisation on Somewhere over the Rainbow, melding cool elegance and jaunty stride, ending with a playful, and appreciated, Tchaikovsky quote.
