Review: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall

It was a revitalised Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra that took the town hall stage on Thursday evening.

The concept behind the programme was "The Great Tradition", and conductor Oleg Caetani ensured that Webern, Haydn and Brahms offered fascinating perspectives on the time-honoured Viennese tradition.

Webern's Orchestral Pieces of Opus 6 were especially welcome and the best pathway into these works, so aptly described by Stravinsky as dazzling diamonds, is through their brilliant palette of colours.

Caetani was a master painter, illuminating every fleck and streak. There were a few blemishes, from an early split trumpet note to some vagueness on the final page, but the players responded imaginatively, treating this music as nothing more to be feared than leanly scored, 20th century Brahms.

Thanks to Caetani's brisk baton and pruned-down orchestral forces, Haydn's C major Cello Concerto was the lithe delight it should be.

Soloist Torleif Thedeen was a marvel, with articulation that bordered on the athletic, yet he had the sustained notes in the Adagio blooming into soulful melodies Schumann would have envied. The Finale was breathless in pace and bristling in its energy.

Thedeen gave us those strange, severe Britten cadenzas, as did Rostropovich when he played Haydn in Wellington 21 years ago. And they were echoed in his encore - a poignant "Lamento" by the English composer, which had us hanging on every liquid note.

Auckland has had no shortage of Brahms symphonies over the past few years but, after interval, we were treated to a particularly fine reading of his First Symphony.

Caetani caught the score's essential restlessness with dynamic swells and crushing dissonances that hinted at the muscular ripple of an Allegro to come.

He guided the violins through their long, singing lines in the Andante sostenuto, taking especial care with the interface between strings and woodwind while the following Allegretto was graceful in gait.

The mighty Finale was a celebration on so many levels - of a composer, a tradition and, not least of all, the musicians who played it that night.