Concert Review: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Auckland Town Hall

Danail Rachev gave Brahms' Fourth Symphony the right light touch. Photo / Supplied

Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte overture was a frothy launch for Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Thursday concert.

Camille White's shapely, sassy oboe set off the rippling woodwind play that makes this the composer's most seductive prelude while conductor Danail Rachev even seemed about to instigate a Rossini crescendo in Mozart's closing bars.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a familiar name to Auckland audiences, having been the APO's principal trumpet in 2008, had been called in to deputise for Tristram Williams in Haydn's Trumpet Concerto.

A cautiously paced Allegro revealed Fitzpatrick's noble, burnished tone even if the following Andante was not without minor blemishes. In the meantime, Rachev and his players made the most of Haydn's passing chromatic intrigues. The Finale, dampened by the occasional askew fanfare from the soloist, kept spirits up until the final flourish.

Alfred Schnittke's Moz-art a la Haydn brought a touch of music theatre to the concert hall.

Lights were lowered and raised while some players changed position during the performance, eventually deserting their colleagues.

Musically, the strings mostly dealt out snippets of Mozart carnival music in various states of disarray, the most amusing moment coming when a snatch of the famous G minor Symphony more or less melted away before our ears.

All in all, it was immense fun, our enjoyment much increased by the lively duo of Dimitri Atanassov and Miranda Adams as the duelling fiddlers.

The test for any orchestra with Brahms' Fourth Symphony comes a few pages into the first movement when the woodwind takes over the main theme and puts it through a complex orchestral weave; Rachev achieved the perfectly translucent texture here and the leggiero that Brahms demands.

Detail and balance were a priority in the Andante moderato, and there was a real glow to what might be seen as slightly reticent scoring.

The mighty Allegro energico last movement gave us yearning strings and striding vigour in a marvellously sustained finale to the concert.