Review: APO at Auckland Town Hall

The revivification of the Auckland Town Hall organ has certainly captured the imagination of the city, so much so that Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Thursday concert drew a capacity audience and was repeated two nights later.

On Thursday, anticipation hovered over the hall from the moment Thomas Trotter prepared for his first notes; opera glasses and binoculars could be seen, bringing the English organist up close in action.

Although it's a puzzle why William Walton, one of the enfants terribles of the '20s, would compose a Coronation March a decade later, his Crown Imperial certainly injected a sense of the ceremonial.

Conductor Arvo Volmer spiked its opening with vigorous rhythms and clear-chiselled chords; its "big tune", the missing link between Elgar and Eric Coates, was goose-pimple inducing.

Poulenc's Organ Concerto may have been premiered in a salon, but it works remarkably well on a grander scale. Trotter's Bachian flourishes lacked nothing in brilliance, yet elsewhere he created the equivalent of watercolours in sound.

There were Gothic frissons with Poulenc's discreetly horror-house harmonies, issuing forth against Vadim Simongauz' stark timpani. And, when the composer waxes romantically, which is for a good deal of the time, Volmer coaxed elegant sighs and serenading from the strings.

One was often reminded of Poulenc justifying his relatively conservative style by claiming "there is a place for new music which is happy to use other men's chords".

Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony was first heard in London in 1886, and the cantankerous George Bernard Shaw suggested "ruthless excisions" be made in its Finale.

Yet, how could one sanction even a semiquaver being snipped from the APO's stirring performance, opening with the vibrant delicacy of oboe, violins and violas and closing in a splendiferous C major blaze.

The Poco Adagio, afloat on Trotter's liquid-toned chords, was an enchanted voyage, while the glittering piano of Sarah Watkins and Tatiana Lanchtchikova ushered in Saint-Saens' appropriately ethereal chorale. Making every fugato count with players who were behind him every beat of the way, Volmer had staked a persuasive claim for Saint-Saens as one of the unsung symphonic heroes.