KEY POINTS:
French cellist Gautier Capucon may have been the poster boy for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's weekend visit, but Estonian conductor Arvo Volmer was an equal partner in the success of both concerts.
We first heard Volmer last year doing Shostakovich with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. This time, we were swept away by his finessing of the sonic sunrise that is Nielsen's Helios Overture as well as his earthy account of Dvorak's New World Symphony.
On Friday, Nielsen's Fourth Symphony, the Inextinguishable, justified its title and then some. This can be a shattering experience as the Danish composer reacts grimly, yet triumphantly to the dehumanisation of World War I.
Volmer and his musicians stayed on Nielsen's perilous course and caught every swerve and inflection until timpanists Laurence Reese and Thomas Guldborg slugged it out in grand style in the Finale, creating the sort of excitement one expects from a Gareth Farr experience.
The programme proudly noted that this was the NZSO's first performance of the symphony; Aucklanders can be doubly proud that the APO performed it seven years ago.
On stage Capucon is a phenomenon. On Friday the Dvorak Concerto basked in a rich romantic glow. His Gofriller cello positively roared when stronger emotions were demanded and yet, in the Adagio, it entwined its lines around those of the orchestral soloists in a rare, privileged chamber music.
The Walton Concerto on Saturday night was another romantic outpouring, with a first movement that had the tang of Korngold and bitters. One was caught by every note and how perfectly Capucon had placed it in its phrase, as well as by his immaculately judged vibrato.
Faure's song Apres un reve, unaccompanied, was the perfect Gallic encore.
Saturday night also had a jubilant overture in These Arms to Hold You, a celebration of the Royal New Zealand Plunket Society Centenary, composed by Eve de Castro-Robinson to words by Bill Manhire.
The T-shirted youngsters of Kelburn's Lyrica Choir scampered up the aisle to their podium and then sang, rapped and twirled rattles over an orchestral back-drop that ranged from walking bass to minimalist chug, with percussion adding the colours of 1000 tinkling rainbows. Tongue-in-cheek quotations included the chance to meet a mother with flaxen hair.
One felt a subtext here. Were some unsettling intervals in the work's central lullaby to remind us that organisations like Plunket are vulnerable when it comes to funding? Was the final gender tangle ending in the all-affirming "It's a baby!" significant for our times?
Whatever serious intent lay within its finely crafted pages, this was both fun and zestfully done - Volmer's conspiratorial smiles were priceless, as he turned to synchronise with Nicola Edgecombe and her young choir.
If you missed Friday's concert, you can thrill to the Capucon's romantic Dvorak and Volmer's stormy Nielsen when Radio New Zealand Concert plays the Wellington performance of this programme tonight at 8.20pm.
