Concert Review: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall

APO conductor Roy Goodman. Photo / Supplied

How refreshing, with the Pike River mine disaster inspiring a self-serving media overload on television, to experience the perfect tribute from Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.

Barbara Glaser, the orchestra's chief executive, opening the APO's Grand Finale concert and acknowledging the power of music in times of despair, announced that Elgar's Nimrod Variation would be dedicated to the valiant West Coast community.

As Roy Goodman and his musicians laid out Elgar's seemingly self-perpetuating chains of melody, the hushed Auckland audience was able to share the grief of listeners in Greymouth - as could the rest of country over Radio New Zealand Concert.

The English composer's In the South followed, a work that is not so much a concert overture as a symphony in one movement.

Goodman took the orchestra from the Straussian bravado of the opening pages through to a ravishing central section, featuring Robert Ashworth's elegiac viola solo.

Sentiment was never tainted by sentimentality in Feng Ning's account of the Glazunov Violin Concerto and it was impossible not to be emotionally transfixed by the violinist's songful Andante theme.

Around him, Goodman fashioned a filigree jewel-case for this gem of a performance. The notoriously difficult Cadenza sang with a rare sense of relaxed spontaneity; when the orchestra rejoined, it was a romp, Russian-style, to the final cadence.

An encore paid tribute to Ning's teacher, Ruggiero Ricci, through a hypnotic rendition of Ricci's transcription of Tarrega's Recuerdos de la Alhambra.

Last year, Goodman disturbed a few preconceptions with his dynamic take on Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. Now it was the turn of the composer's Seventh to live up to Wagner's description of it as the apotheosis of the dance.

The scales of the opening Poco sostenuto seemed to thrust heavenwards, while a dashing Finale closed the season in appropriately celebratory style.

What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra

Where: Auckland Town Hall, Thursday