On paper, the programme for the last of Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Remembering WWI concerts looked good; in performance, it soared to the superb.
The septet of Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale reflects the financial restraints of 1918, unsettled times heard in its spiky, acerbic writing.
Conductor Eckehard Stier generated the buzz of musical theatre; the opening Soldier's March was an offbeat overture, drawing us in through those shivery moments in which the music seems to fall in and out of step.
The lopsided Marche Royale was predictably infectious but there were quieter joys, too: Andrew Beer's scurrying violin; the lonely open spaces of the Pastorale and the cool, clean harmonies of the Grand Choral.
The APO could not have found a finer pianist than Avan Yu for Ravel's Concerto for the left hand, written a decade after World War I had ended. The build-up to the soloist's entrance was magical. A low, brooding darkness lit up as it rose through the orchestra, eventually giving way to a magnificent cadenza, brilliantly delivered by Yu.
