KEY POINTS:
Auckland Chamber Orchestra's Composer Portrait concerts are an invaluable contribution to the city's musical calendar, allotting our country's music the same contextualising we get from retrospective exhibitions in the visual arts.
On Sunday, a smallish but loyal audience was given five samples of John Rimmer's music, chosen by conductor Peter Scholes.
A 1964 Octet may have been a student exercise but, despite Stravinskian tactics, Rimmer made his own mark in the pungent bassoon and horn writing.
The well-primed ensemble relished the playful note-by-note chord build-ups in the boisterous finale.
Although clarinetist Scholes and percussionist Shane Currey gave an electrifying account of the 1981 Emergence, perhaps a score from the composer's ground-breaking Composition series might have been a better choice. These works unite live players and pre-recorded tape and would have provided a gateway into the electronic-influenced sounds of Rimmer's acoustic pieces.
Elegantly turned performances of De Aestibus Rerum (1983) and Murmures (1995) displayed a typically finessed soundworld, especially the first with its motivic swirls and flurries, offset by Carl Wells' dramatic horn outbursts.
Murmures was driven by Sarah Watkins' piano, nudging the edges of hard bop and shiveringly effective when Currey added gamelan shadings.
The 1993 Gossamer was the concert's first venture into a bigger ensemble with a semicircle of 12 string players. As it progressed, Rimmer's spatial play became more evident, working across stage from violins to violas, but its sketch-like quality denied it the structural cohesion of the evening's closing piece.
The Ring of Fire from 1976 gave the concert its title. This is Rimmer's masterpiece, introduced and signed off by the accomplished Adrianna Lis, first on alto flute and finally on piccolo.
The composer's images of volcanic volatility are many and various, from the quasi-electronic sounds of the central section to the arresting colour blends when lahars flow.
Scholes drew a solid, disciplined performance from his group, with a striking solo turn from cellist David Garner and a welcome reminder in its closing koauau-like lament that this 32-year-old score catches the essence of Pacific music so much more tellingly than some recent pieces with more overt bicultural intentions.
