What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Where: Auckland Town Hall
KEY POINTS:
Kodaly's Dances of Galanta is an invigorating concert-opener and Lionel Bringuier's incisive baton guided the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra faultlessly through this volatile score.
As Kodaly's music swerved from the plaintive to the positively rough-and-tumble, the players made every turn with ease.
The sheer tunefulness and geniality of Mozart's two flute concertos might be surprising for a composer who famously admitted that he had little affection for the instrument.
Had he been in Thursday's audience, Mozart may well have altered his opinion after Catherine Bowie's beautifully turned account of his D major Concerto. Working with Bringuier's crisply-paced Allegro, Bowie's consummate artistry was apparent from the poise, shading and breath control of the opening phrase. Even muddied violin intonation did not detract from her lyrical outpouring in the Andante ma non troppo and, in the closing Allegro, her flawless passagework was offset by a spirited enjoyment of Mozart's rhythmic ploys.
After interval, two movements from Bizet's L'Arlesienne replaced a programmed Mephisto Waltz by Liszt. And so, instead of Lisztian devilry, we enjoyed a gracious Minuet followed by an uproarious Farandole.
Bringuier, 22, considers himself a Frenchman with a mission when it comes to the music of his countryman Albert Roussel, and a number of converts could have been signed up after the orchestra's dazzling account of The Spider's Feast.
Roussel's whimsical scenario concerning life and death in the garden is simply a pretext for a score that is a veritable cobweb of iridescent colours. As butterflies waltz by and mayflies are ushered to their grassy graves, moods shift and blur, sometimes by the phrase, and the musicians caught them all.
If Roussel's ballet comes with an unspoken moral that life goes on regardless, the concert ended with the flagrant allegory of Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Bringuier underlined its humour with his vigorous attention to precision resulting in the finest performance of the evening.
This Thursday, in the final concert of the APO's main series, the combination of Bringuier and Berlioz is not to be missed.
