Concert Review: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Auckland Town Hall

Violinist Tasmin Little. Photo / Supplied

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Thursday concert opened with a touch of Hollywood - Finnish style. Conductor Okko Kamu brought us Aullis Sallinen's Sunrise Serenade, a finely scored evocation of the breaking day, occasioned by the centenary of a Finnish bank.

The piece is woven around two solo trumpets, which duet in rough-hewn, muscular song. Huw Dann opened it, mysteriously wafting in from off-stage while Joshua Clarke, on-stage, soared in the work's screenworthy climax.

Sarah Watkins' finely chiselled piano and the full-blooded APO strings made the most of Sallinen's sharply-etched scoring.

Tasmin Little came to us with an untarnished reputation, sealed when her Elgar CD carried off the Critics' Award in last week's Classical Brits. Twenty years ago, she recorded one of the best Sibelius concertos on disc with Vernon Handley.

Yet playing the Sibelius in Auckland, she seemed nervous, right from the passing hesitancies and over-fruity vibrato that clouded the opening pages.

There were more moments of unsteadiness, particularly when chords came into play, although her rich tone and total engagement with the orchestra around her made for a gripping second movement.

Here, one had to question why Kamu made so little of Sibelius's shapely orchestral phrases. The Finale, taken at a measured pace that can make for a fine performance, instilled a sense of panic rather than one of breathless excitement.

After the interval, Brahms' Third Symphony was naggingly problematic. From the beginning, balance problems meant the violins strove to make themselves heard.

This, the most sunny of all Brahms' symphonies, written by a composer who admired Johann Strauss, needs a touch of Viennese lilt, something which completely eluded the Finnish conductor.