KEY POINTS:
Last weekend's visit from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra was preceded by some peculiar publicity, marketing the event as "Music by Masters of the Ballet".
Yet its Friday programme was unflinchingly concert hall fare.
Martin Lodge's Winterlight introduced itself with an elegant orchestral swirl before bassoonist Preman Tilson swept us into the composer's impressionistic vision of seasonal perceptions.
Tilson's artistry made every inflection and shading come through without a falter, whether sailing through woodwind rivulets, riding over rich string harmonies or dispensing the sort of lyricism you might expect from a sensitive saxman.
Conductor Julia Jones had all the balances in order and a passing moment of Adagietto awkwardness was more than atoned for in a full-on Allegro, its angular rhythms fuelled by snare drum and tom- toms.
Jones' opera house credentials ensured the individuality of the orchestral offerings in both concerts.
On Friday, Schumann's D minor Symphony was far from the stodge for which this composer is so often maligned. While other conductors inject life into these scores with a reduced string section, Jones bolstered vitality with muscular rhythms and making the most of the silences between the notes. The outer moments were bold almost to the point of playful bumptiousness, yet the Romanze registered with a chamber music-like subtlety.
The following evening, Jones was a master storyteller in Ravel's Mother Goose Suite, drawing one extravagant fairy tale after another out of her orchestral colouring book. Laideronnette was a coquette with attitude while Beauty and the Beast's conversations ventured disturbingly on the dark side, although there was an uncompromising happy and lush ending to be had.
Perhaps Debussy's La Mer lacked some of the naturalness its composer envisaged when he was aiming for "an art as boundless as the elements". But Jones' sense of the dramatic was ample compensation - the work's final splash of triple forte would have threatened the strongest of breakwaters.
Alban Gerhardt caught the deceptive lightness of Haydn's Second Cello Concerto, despite occasional sourness in double-stopped passages, and Jones had the orchestra at its well-groomed best.
Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante opened the Saturday concert, a testy and testing score that is far removed from the composer's popular ballet music. From the first cadenza, Gerhardt showed he could run the required gamut from poignant lyricism to unsparing virtuosics, with an energy that did not dissipate until the toccata-like flurry of the final pages had worked itself out.
And if you missed Friday's concert, or want to be charmed again by the winter-time ruminations of Martin Lodge or experience Julia Jones' startling take on Schumann, the indispensable Radio New Zealand Concert broadcasts this programme tonight at 8 o'clock.
