Sailor Goodman hoping for fair wind in Auckland

Roy Goodman. Photo / Supplied

Roy Goodman, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's principal guest conductor, provided a number of concert highlights last year, from Mozart's very first symphony in April to a magisterial Haydn Creation and a revelatory Beethoven Eroica in October. In between, he was the man behind the baton when Josef Spacek won the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in June.

I caught up with the English conductor in Sydney, where he and Chinese cellist Jiang Wang are rehearsing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra - next Thursday the pair presents an APO programme of JC Bach, Haydn and Handel.

Jian Wang is "just a dream", Goodman enthuses. "He's like all my favourite soloists. You don't have to talk very much, he's logical and doesn't make a big deal out of things. He's a lovely, smiley guy and I'm so happy we're doing the Haydn next week in Auckland."

Goodman spiels like a benevolent runaway hurricane, along the way incorporating talk of composers, works and gigs from the past, present and future of his indubitably brilliant career. Now he wonders whether he might direct the Haydn D major Cello Concerto from the harpsichord, recalling a performance in Potsdam with Christophe Coin. Thursday's concert opens with an Endimione Overture by Johann Christian Bach, son of the great Johann Sebastian, and Goodman is thrilled to have hunted out and restored its missing trumpet and timpani parts. "It's much more exciting with them. Without them, it sounds like Music Minus One."

The programme is centred around the 17th and 18th century, music that Goodman would have once played with his various specialist Early Music ensembles. These days he plays Haydn, Handel and the like, almost exclusively with modern orchestras. "I'm used to trying my hardest to get these players to achieve the colours, articulation and phrasing the composers would have expected and recognised. It's not at all strange for me to try to sell these ideas to modern musicians.

"Luckily, I know what I'm doing because I started as a modern violinist - there weren't such things as baroque fiddles when I went to the Royal College of Music in 1968. Now I try to translate that sound into modern playing. If I'm a little controversial, I don't mind that," says Goodman. "I do my thing and hope it works. I go back to the places where it works best and Auckland is certainly one of those. My repertoire is enormous and I don't want to learn too many new pieces, perhaps just one or two a year."

Two of Handel's Water Music Suites round off Thursday's concert and Goodman admits they fit in well with his passion for life on the ocean waves. He gives over some months each year to sailing in his 11m Delphia yacht and there is another chuckle when he explains how its name, Credeau, is a quirky combination of the Latin "I believe" and the French for water.

Goodman is serious about his boating and has put three months aside later this year to sail around Britain single-handed and, having having clocked up 5000 hours in the last four years, he would seem to be the model of a shipshape sailor.

PERFORMANCE

What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Thursday at 8pm
On air: Tonight's Roy Goodman/Jian Wang performance in Sydney will be broadcast live on ABC Classic FM from 10pm; go to www.abc.net.au/classic