Review: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall

Last Thursday, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra gave us our first sampling of the Roy Goodman Experience since the Englishman became principal guest conductor late last year.

It is nigh impossible to resist the sheer showmanship of this man, introducing Mozart's very first symphony by singing a little theme that would eventually grace the composer's final Jupiter score.

The lyrics of these four notes - "I like music" - betrayed Goodman's deep affection for this charmingly naive composition, inspiring players to bloom fetchingly on their semibreves and skip blithely through their semiquavers.

Alas, the tag theme itself suffered from truly dismal horn playing. But this was a minor transgression alongside what we got in the composer's Sinfonia Concertante.

While orchestra and conductor were in fine accord, Mozart's melodious duetting was ill-served by the soloists.

Concertmaster Dimitri Atanassov and principal violist Robert Ashworth, in particular, were distinctly subpar.

The first cadenza was an affront, and the whole first movement was burdened with the sort of playing one might expect from a mediocre student, not professional soloists.

After the interval, Haydn's Windsor Castle overture was easy, breezy fare, not without a few rumbles of drama.

Goodman, who included it in his recordings of the complete Haydn Symphonies, is obviously fond of the piece, and it showed.

Haydn's Symphony 99 was the total experience. Goodman achieved a rare balancing of strings and woodwind in the initial adagio and the second movement, and the orchestra enjoyed running the minuet out-of-doors for a country dance.

For aficionados, there were delightful surprises in the finale's phrasings.

The major surprise came when Haydn's "false" ending engendered a trickle of applause. Goodman spun around, pointed an accusatory finger, cried "Gotcha!" through a beaming smile and resumed Haydn without further delay.