What: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, with Pinchas Zukerman.
Where: Auckland Town Hall.
The first instalment of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's The Zukerman Experience certainly fulfilled the promise of its title. But then, should one have expected anything less?
This partnership of a soloist who knows the Elgar Violin Concerto as do few others and a conductor who has thrilled us time and time again in matters Elgarian, was a dream team.
It took just one phrase for James Judd to put his seal on the Concerto, drawing a palpable passion from the NZSO players.
The sound of the orchestra was bold and confident, yet infinitely flexible. Crescendos became roaring waves; moments of reflection were exquisitely shaded.
Before making his entry, Pinchas Zukerman tested the water, playing along with the orchestra; when his time came, he soared into action.
Indeed, it is difficult to remember such vibrant playing on a G string or such purity and sweetness of tone in the violin's upper reaches.
Such was the sympathy between soloist and orchestra, despite some fairly gargantuan orchestral forces, there was the intimacy of chamber music. Semplice passages were exquisitely accounted for.
Zukerman caught the fragile emotions of the second movement with sighing portamentos, almost but not quite falling into gemutlichkeit while Judd's body movements reminded us of the rhythms beneath the lyrical surface.
The final movement revealed Zukerman as the total virtuoso, with dead-on triple-stops and the subtlest of accompanied cadenzas.
After interval Elgar's Second Symphony proved itself to be a living, breathing wonder showing why film composer Bernard Herrmann considered this the most intimate and personal of the composer's scores, evoking the landscapes of Van Gogh and Samuel Palmer.
Judd caught all this and more. The great work hurtled into life and stormed through its first movement without compromising its nobilmente spirit.
Virtuoso playing allowed Judd to give an almost Debussian sheen to the second movement.
Many must have wondered how the third movement could be such a sprightly Scherzo considering the mammoth forces being employed.
There were too many empty seats at this concert and there should not have been. One only hopes that more Aucklanders will make the effort to catch the violinist's final appearances this afternoon and tonight.
