More concerts should come with entrees as taste-tempting as Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite. On Thursday, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, under Eckehard Stier, certainly served it up in scrumptious style.
Stravinsky teases our musical palates here, toying with the original Pergolesi score. Placid G major does not last long before touches of rustic fiddling and other seditious string techniques leave their mark.
Dissonances are as delicious as the luscious fruit that peppers and peps up an olive loaf.
The musicians, in concerto grosso formation, benefited from the assured lead of Wilma Smith, with eloquent solo turns throughout the orchestra. Bede Hanley's oboe was particularly affecting in the Serenata and Huw Dann's trumpet set the tone for the breezy jaunt of the Toccata.
Poulenc's Organ Concerto sustained this sense of elation, but would one expect anything less from a composer who praised French music as always leavening the profound with a lightness of spirit, without which life would be unbearable.
