KEY POINTS:
With the extra brass power of the Central Band of the Royal New Zealand Air Force in the choir stalls, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra opened its concert with Janacek's extraordinary Sinfonietta.
Here was a 72-year-old composer in 1926 fearlessly taking on the younger Stravinsky and Bartok as well as looking ahead, more than half a century, to the minimalist grooves of Philip Glass.
Janacek's Sinfonietta is also a work with heart; it celebrated the newly won independence of Czechoslovakia and the story of his town of Brno, launched by what the composer described as "the blaring of my triumphal trumpets".
Two years ago, Estonian conductor Arvo Volmer masterfully guided the APO through Shostakovich's monumental Leningrad Symphony; his achievement in the terser terrain of Janacek was no less impressive.
The relentlessly repeated asymmetric phrases of the Sinfonietta coalesced perfectly through Volmer's meticulous balancing of his forces and his gauging of the many tempo shifts. The orchestra was behind him to a player until the final fanfare, laced with demonic string trills, had faded.
Bella Hristova's fresh, vital delivery of Prokofiev's First Concerto showed her win in last year's Michael Hill International Violin Competition was no fluke.
Weaving through the twists of Prokofiev's opening theme, never compromising the requested dreamy tone, Hristova would also prove she could strum her instrument with the fury of a folk-fiddler and deliver immaculate double-stopped counterpoint.
The sonorous tone of her 1655 Amati violin meant that even the slightest pizzicato floated effortlessly through the hall.
Hristova, Volmer and the APO were a memorable team, from the circus-like glitter of the central Scherzo to the pianissimo sweep of the closing pages. Many details linger, none more tellingly than Hristova's lovely swerve into cantabile in the Finale or her lithe, finely sprung Bach Allemande offered as an encore.
After interval, the orchestra surrendered to the saturated Technicolor canvas of Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade. Dimitri Atanassov's solo violin was a persuasive narrator and, even if the royal couple of the third movement might have had their romance shaded a little more subtly, elsewhere there was much surging maritime magnificence and sprightly wind playing.
