KEY POINTS:
Stravinsky's Les Noces and Haydn's Mass in Time of War side-by-side is the imaginative programming we have come to expect from the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and the line-up for the orchestra's Choral Masterpieces concert was certainly promising on paper.
Conductor Otto Tausk is a Gergiev protege, Kiwi bass Martin Snell was returning to consolidate on his recent triumph as Jokanaan in Salome and the Graduate Choir was undertaking its most ambitious outing.
Add to this Michael Houstoun, Diedre Irons, Andrea Katz and Alexander Melnikov on four pianos and little wonder that expectations ran high.
Tausk certainly kept Stravinsky on the rails in Les Noces, although for much of the time all one heard was a pulsating Phil Spector-like wall of pianos and percussion. It was almost surreal watching four solo singers working so hard for so little reward in the way of audibility.
Merlyn Quaife's clear soprano asserted itself over most of the surging rumble, and Snell whooped enthusiastically in the last section and brought it all to a lyrical end.
Serbian mezzo Milijana Nikolic was often submerged in the mix and any notes one heard from tenor Ted Schmitz were desperate in tone and delivery.
The same soloists took up their posts for the Haydn Mass, and Snell's resonant bass was shown to good effect in the Qui tollis peccata, complemented by David Garner's melodious cello obbligato.
Quaife, utterly professional, lacked the requisite vocal warmth for this work, something which was evident from the first phrase of the Kyrie eleison, although there was compensation in Nikolic's burnished tone.
Schmitz's few solo moments confirmed suspicions that tenors must indeed be a rare commodity if this singer has made it to the international circuit. Tausk's Haydn rivalled his Stravinsky for gusto.
The Gloria was indeed vivace and later allegros were delivered con spirito.
The orchestra, from decorative violin lines and crisp woodwind solos to thrilling onslaughts of trumpets and drums, was in prime form.
The Graduate Choir, more comfortable here than with Stravinsky's Slavic primitivism, showed the careful grooming of director Terence Maskell in its sensitive phrasing and dynamic control and forthright way with a fugue.
