The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, paying a second visit to Auckland within eight days, came to town with a curious (and rather short) programme.
A second hearing of Gareth Farr's new He iwi tahi tatou was a visceral, exciting overture to an evening lighter in content than last week's double bill of Brahms and Tchaikovsky.
Farr's ebullient orchestral workout would have competition ahead in a similarly extrovert score that opened the second half of the concert.
Harth-Bedoya has brought us music by his countryman Jimmy Lopez before, and Fiesta!, described by its Peruvian composer as "Four Pop Dances for Orchestra", was a showcase of orchestral dazzle, even if excessive lacings of bongo fury made one aware of a worrying lack of real musical substance.
Positioned between these flashy sonic Cadillacs, Mozart's Bassoon Concerto was like a horse-and-buggy ride. This early work by the composer is not, alas, top-drawer in inspiration and one's admiration went out to soloist Robert Weeks, unfazed by the relentless passagework of its determinedly cheerful Allegro.
