Classical Review: NZSO, Auckland Town Hall

NZ Herald·

3 May, 2015 05:00 PM2 mins to read

Conductor Christian Lindberg was a major contributor to the work's success.

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's Aotearoa Plus concert welcomed us with a spellbinder.

Michael Norris' Claro is the Wellington composer's first major premiere since winning last year's SOUNZ Contemporary Award and, after some pages of well sustained anticipation, willing ears were led through an engrossing and rewarding soundworld.

Drawing inspiration from bells, Claro set off with isolated small-scale chimes that gave little hint of mountainous climaxes ahead, as Norris manipulated two central chord patterns, giving this complex score an appealing chromatic anchor.

Conductor Christian Lindberg was a major contributor to the work's success. His limb-hugging leggings may have been a distraction to some in the stalls, but his podium precision and pizzazz were just what was needed.

When Lindberg visited us, as a trombonist, in 2008, he played Jan Sandstrom's rather over-heated concerto, A Motorbike Odyssey, clad in leather jacket and dispensing lots of silliness.

Tonight, the Swedish composer's 2012 Echoes of Eternity expanded the soloist roster to two, with the NZSO's David Bremner, demure in sober suit and tie, alongside Lindberg, flamboyant in mauve top over the leggings.

To some in the rather sparse audience, it would have been an entertaining enough grab-bag, evoking the Spanish city of Caceres with a few too many lashings of the trite and wacky.

Towards the end, Sandstrom's poem, recited by Lindberg, signed off with "Let's hear what the old soldier has to tell us." We'd heard much of it already unfortunately, before the final fracas of duelling trombones, Psycho strings and knockabout circus vulgarity.

After interval, Douglas Lilburn's 1951 Second Symphony came across as of the epitome of good taste and, thanks to Lindberg, possessing a sinewy musical torso that belied its age. Back in black and conducting from memory, the Swede made a galvanising blast of the opening Moderato. Tremolos razed and dissonant clashes were defiantly brought to the foreground.

If the scherzo was maybe a little too brutal, the lush tenderness of the third movement was perfectly pitched, catching the hopes that the composer held for creating a musical legacy for this land of ours.