Thursday night's Shostakovich 5 concert opened with a very significant farewell as Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra chairman Geraint Martin paid tribute to Barbara Glaser, who was relinquishing her role of chief executive after more than 17 distinguished years. Photo / Adrian Malloch
Thursday night's Shostakovich 5 concert opened with a very significant farewell as Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra chairman Geraint Martin paid tribute to Barbara Glaser, who was relinquishing her role of chief executive after more than 17 distinguished years. Photo / Adrian Malloch
OPINION
Thursday night’s Shostakovich 5 concert opened with a very significant farewell as Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (APO) chairman Geraint Martin paid tribute to Barbara Glaser, who was relinquishing her role of chief executive after more than 17 distinguished years.
Glaser’s leadership has been instrumental in creating what Martin described asa civic taonga, a jewel in the heart of Auckland city. Performing Die tote Stadt and celebrating Matariki with Troy Kingi within five days last month certainly reveals an orchestra dedicated to excellence and diversity.
The first musical offering, Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake, was lustrously evoked under the baton of Shijeon Sung, the APO’s principal guest conductor.
Thursday night's Shostakovich 5 concert opened with a very significant farewell for Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra chief executive Barbara Glaser. Photo / Adrian Malloch
Ravel’s Piano Concerto brought in Steven Osborne, a wry and witty Scotsman with just the flair to put sass and sting into this jazziest of concertos. Yet how easily he transported us to a Ravelian dreamsville in the work’s central blues, rippling under the uber-cool solos of Melanie Lancon and Camille Wells.
After a scampering finale, with the composer’s orchestral colour-play flickering through Osborne’s flying fingerwork, encore time brought a more meditative mood, with the pianist improvising on the spiritual-like opening of Keith Jarrett’s historic Vienna concert.
There is no doubting the sheer primal power of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, yet some still question just how much of the work shows the composer bowing, albeit slyly, to Soviet strictures.
Thursday night's Shostakovich 5 concert opened with a very significant farewell for Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra chief executive Barbara Glaser. Photo / Adrian Malloch
With Shijeon Sung, it was obvious we were in for music of passionate protest, right from the encircling lines that, snake-like, set off its first movement. Throughout the work, subtle fluctuations of tempo created all-important emotional tension.
The allegretto, complete with chamber waltzes that might have slipped in from Stravinsky’s Petrushka, was essentially a dance of fury. The largo that followed, one of Shostakovich’s most poignant slow movements, had massive banks of APO strings tearing at our heartstrings, while the finale, again on the dark side, ended with shouts of anger that drew forth sustained, furious applause.
