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.
