What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Where: Auckland Town Hall
When: Thursday, October 19
Reviewer: William Dart
Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s (APO) Symphonic Dances concert was charmingly ushered in by Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony.
William Dart review: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s Symphonic Dances concert
Chloe van Soetersted conducts the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra during the Symphonic Dances concert at the Auckland Town Hall. Photo / Adrian Malloch
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Dare one contemplate what might lie beneath its cool and often wry elegance, written during the Russian Revolution, its composer seeking refuge in the unruffled world of Mozartian classicism?
Chloe van Soeterstede, making her APO debut, effortlessly maintained its welcoming grace, gently stressing the harmonic barbs that propel its bittersweet journey and enthusiastically energising those great dynamic surges that almost have one expecting a dancer to leap from the wings.
The spirit of the dance hovered over the whole piece, not only in the third movement’s punchy gavotte, but also in the subtle and lyrical pulsations of the preceding larghetto.
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From the opening phrase of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, one could sense Sergey Khachatryan’s determination to put his own passionate stamp on its well-mannered melodies. Conductor and orchestra were in total accord, as textures swelled and billowed around him.
Khachatryan enjoyed blending with woodwind on Mendelssohn’s sentimental second subject, and his cadenza did indeed come across as an improvised creation, finally allowing the orchestra to rejoin the play.
Mendelssohn’s Andante was the ultimate song without words, his finale a fire flickering brightly (but safely contained) in the forest of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Eschewing virtuosity, Khachatryan bared his soul at encore time with a folk song from his native Armenia, its eerie harmonics and double-stopping hinting, perhaps, at the unrest in his country’s past and recent history.
Might Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances run the risk of becoming too familiar in our concert halls? Never, it would seem, when one is swept away by the sheer rhythmic heft and vitality of Thursday night’s first movement.
This was the composer’s last and, he felt, finest work; a justified judgement as one surrendered so easily to Michael Jamieson’s poignant saxophone in its finely sculpted woodwind glade, marvelled at van Soeterstede’s delicate evocation of a haunted ballroom or pondered more profound thoughts in Rachmaninov’s weightier finale.
