KEY POINTS:
Judging by the large, enthusiastic audience for the first of Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Splendour of Beethoven concerts, Beethoven's name remains synonymous with box-office gold.
Conductor Wolfram Christ fervently took the cause of the music from the mighty call-to-arms on strings that opens the Egmont overture.
An Allegro seemed to emerge organically from this introduction and an inevitable momentum ensued until the final Coda, unbridled in its bustling triumph, drew the work to a close.
Beethoven's C minor Concerto featured Bernd Glemser, a German pianist known through his fine recordings of Prokofiev and Schumann.
The tightly knit collegiality of soloist, conductor and orchestra was apparent early on, particularly in the development section of the first movement.
Minutes later, Glemser was on his own, determined to equal the drama of the entire concerto in the few pages of Beethoven's cadenza.
The Largo was heavenly. The opening piano statement, with its persuasive rubato, presented Beethoven in the vanguard of a new romantic generation rather than alongside those composers who had gone before.
This was even more evident when Glemser invested his passage work with a Chopinesque gleam.
High spirits prevailed in the Rondo, making much of flitting shifts from minor to major, and delivering quite a sting in its breakneck closing pages.
After interval, Christ wrought wonders with Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. The Introduction was appropriately spacious, with strings soaring effortlessly from the woodwind background while a transition into F major was seamless.
The dance of the Vivace was perfectly gauged as was the detail and pacing of the Allegretto, a slow movement only in the context of the music surrounding it.
The orchestra handled the to-and-fro of the Presto with a winning naturalness, even if string intonation was not always as reliable as it might have been.
The Finale did not cheat those expecting a frenetic work-out, although violins had problems asserting their obsessive riff of a melody over metronomic orchestral beats.
It's not over. Glemser returns with the Emperor Concerto on Thursday, and offers a recital of romantic fare at the Museum come Saturday - concerts not to be missed.
