Review: APO at Auckland Town Hall

Baldur Bronnimann gave full voice to all the touches that make Berlioz the most radical of all the romantics.

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Thursday concert came with the most imaginative title of this APN News & Media Premier Series - Visions of Land and Sea. Its journey from the evocative landscapes of Berlioz's Harold in Italy and Sibelius's Pohjola's Daughter to the marine dazzlement of Debussy's La Mer was a memorable one.

Conductor Baldur Bronnimann and violist Brett Dean were in total accord for Berlioz's extraordinary roam through an imaginary Alpine setting. Dean caught the composer's melancholy dreamer of a hero in the sighing phrases of his very first entry. And it was this mood that dominated, as the Australian provided his pensive commentary on the often brilliant orchestral goings-on.

Harold in Italy is the work of a composer whose imagination was not sullied by rules and regulations and Bronnimann gave full voice to all those quirky and sometimes devious touches that make Berlioz the most radical of all the romantics.

However, even the most radical intentions, from composer or performers, could not sanction the scrawny intonation of the off-stage musicians in this Finale, sounding like an inebriated string band accompanying the last call for drinks at an over-generous Christmas function.

After interval, confidence was restored with a glowing account of Pohjola's Daughter. Bronnimann and his musicians invested this rarely heard symphonic poem with a extraordinary cohesion and inevitability, despite the seeming fragmentation of its writing. The players took advantage of every opportunity offered.

If La Mer may have been found wanting in the occasional finer detail, it was not enough to detract from the exhilaration it engendered. It was easy to relax in its first movement and be lulled by images of the sun rising over the waves. The same waves danced with appropriate Spanish vivacity in the central movement and, by the end, who could resist being swept away by such a vigorous and well-argued dialogue between the waves and the wind?