Auckland Phiharmonia Orchestra. Photo / Supplied
What: Auckland Phiharmonia Orchestra
Where: Auckland Town Hall
When: Thursday
Reviewer: William Dart
Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s Star-Crossed Lovers concert was launched with a thunderbolt when Giordano Bellincampi released Beethoven’s Egmont Overture from the prison of its printed pages.
A veritable storm radiated from one resounding unison, ominous string chords and wafting woodwind eventually erupting into an all-conquering Allegro.
Bellincampi gave us Beethoven rejoicing in the power of the primal, with the simplest of chord sequences and flying fanfares, positively pummelling a certain four-note rhythm, already familiar from his Fifth Symphony.
Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade after Plato’s Symposium is one of the great violin concertos. Soloist, James Ehnes once playfully described it as a mix of lyrical melodies, great virtuoso writing and a really raucous wild ending. He’s right, of course, although its five movements also offer a profound and provocative examination of love, echoing Plato’s philosophising dinner guests.
Ehnes was in his usual superb form, his elegant opening solo instigating a stirring fugal response from the strings. When the spirit of the dance intervened, one breathed the air of Vienna and felt the lilt of Mahler.
Dance is never far away with the composer of West Side Story, even if this Serenade’s fourth movement is a heart-melting Adagio, during which Ehnes fires off an explosive cadenza.
Bernstein’s often jazzy finale, with the orchestra palpably enjoying its careering rhythms, features a second cadenza, this time a duet with cellist Ashley Brown — an eloquent Platonic dialogue in music.
After four weeks playing Beethoven, Brahms, Barber and Bernstein, Ehnes suggested Bach would be his encore — a graceful and perfectly weighted Andante, a sarabande in all but name.
Perhaps Bernstein had provided enough intellectual and symphonic sustenance for the evening and, after interval, a well-chosen selection from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet went down well.
The Russian’s orchestral wizardry, dazzlingly presented tonight, is always a source of marvelment. But watching Bellincampi so lovingly mould the Madrigal movement with his expressive fingers, one sensed an even richer gold to be discovered beyond the glitter.
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