Auckland Chamber Orchestra in concert

By HEATH LEES

CONCERT CHAMBER - Having the year's debut on July 1 seems unduly late for the ACO musicians, but they're making up for it over the next few months with six ambitious programmes, including a concert version of a complete Mozart opera.

Mozart gives his name to the whole series - Mozart and More - and last Sunday's concert featured two contemporary pieces from this part of the world with two works from the classical Viennese school, a Mozart violin concerto and Haydn's "Military" symphony.

Many of the orchestra's players this year are students or recent students, and their young and enthusiastic approach seemed to account for the fact that the contemporary works fared best.

Anthony Ritchie's somewhat unsettled piece Remember Parihaka was given a sincerely musical performance, and Maria Grenfell's muscular and sometimes witty dialogues between songlike voices and free-for-all textures yielded the most colourful moments of the concert.

Sadly, colour was one of the elements lacking in Mozart's K.219 Violin Concerto. Tentative and untidy in the early stages, it revealed problems of tuning and attack in the wind and brass that refused to go away.

The general insecurity spread to the soloist, Lara Hall. She was clearly a favourite with the audience but her tone had a tendency to flatness, and the faster runs and passagework never quite got off the ground.

However, her second encore from Bach was nicely shaped and well received.

By the final piece, Haydn's "Military" Symphony, greater cohesion had been established, and Peter Scholes was able to direct a neatly profiled performance, pointing up all the appropriate military-band touches of cymbal, thick wind chords and a stirring tread.