Classical review: Northern journey dazzles and awes

German soloist Nicola Jurgensen took a dance on the dark side during Scandinavian Adventure.

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Scandinavian Adventure was an appealing mix of the familiar and less so, in keeping with the concert's title and its programming pizzazz.

A suite from Grieg's Peer Gynt acknowledged popular taste, but its four well-known extracts were preceded by the effervescent scherzo of Peer's homecoming. Its spritzig energy, as conveyed by Eckehard Stier and his orchestra, suggested bubbles barely contained in a shaken-up bottle of Norwegian Voss water.

Day broke sumptuously over the fiord in "Morning Mood" while violins and cellos wove seductively as Anitra danced. Grieg's final Mountain Hall cataclysm was more thunderous after its cautious launch and the moving death of the hero's mother, caught by the strings at their sonorous best.

Carl Nielsen's 1928 Clarinet Concerto sees the Danish composer coming fully to terms with the 20th century.

English writer Wilfrid Mellers has described this as music of diminishing twilights and burgeoning dawns and these qualities were caught brilliantly by German soloist Nicola Jurgensen.

Agility ruled, as Jurgensen and a well-groomed orchestra took a dance on the dark side, with moments of wistful tranquility and fiery cadenzas. Inevitably, her sharply-etched interchanges with Eric Renick's snare drum evoked the world of Shostakovich and Jurgensen's encore was a dazzling dash through Stravinsky's 1918 homage to the joys of jazz improv. The second concerto of the evening was Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus, the "soloists" being an aviary of northern birds caught on the tape that underscored the orchestral goings on.

It worked well but was more engaging when the woodwind interacted with their feathered progenitors rather than when the Finnish composer pontificated with sturdy tunes on horns and strings against washes of celesta and harp.

Sibelius' great final symphony was both the summit and summation of the evening. The composer used the language of nature to describe this work and, although birds are not absent, what marks this score is the epic sweep of its landscape and the tautness of its musical argument.

Eckehard Stier understands both, bringing forth a performance that must be one of the highlights of the APO's 2013 season.