KEY POINTS:
Bela Bartok was aware his First Piano Concerto charted new territory for all who came into contact with it. Not only did the work make fearsome demands on its soloist, the composer also admitted it might be "difficult" for both orchestra and audience.
Now ears are more attuned to what would have seemed like card-carrying Modernism in 1926.
On Thursday, pianist Susanna Stefani Caetani, conductor Kirill Karabits and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra provided a breathtaking justification of this score's place as one of its century's premier concertos.
Stefani Caetani is a pianist with the heft to sail unflinchingly through Bartok's relentless octaves and pounding chords, even if some niceties of line occasionally recessed in the tumultuous Finale.
She certainly nailed its brute power, as surely as Karabits seemed to be searching out the sometimes impish humour of the outer movements.
The central Andante was as eerie as press releases had promised, with soloist, wind and percussion undertaking a ghostly waltz that proved impossible to keep in its ballroom.
Mark Fitzpatrick's trumpet fanfare set Mahler's Fifth Symphony off to a thrilling start. Karabits put a swagger into the opening pages, which made the strings seem all the sweeter when they came in. Tempo shifts were manic, with one precipitato passage making one feel as if all was teetering on a cliff edge.
This approach continued in the Scherzo, with Nicola Averill's solo horn expertly punctuating Karabits' wild mood-swerves. Despite brusque and jagged shifts, sentiment took over in the Etwas ruhiger section, so much so one could imagine the strings cosily ensconced in a Viennese cafe.
Strings, with solitary harp, went for the heart in the Adagietto, the slow movement indelibly associated with Visconti's film Death in Venice. And our hearts were won, thanks to Karabits' care in giving inner parts their due, creating a heavenly calm before the unbridled energy of the Finale.
Bruno Walter described this symphony as passionate, wild, heroic, exuberant, fiery, solemn and tender, pointing out how it encompassed the whole gamut of feeling.
The great Mahlerian would have been very happy to have been in Thursday night's audience.
