Auckland Choral Society at Holy Trinity Cathedral

By HEATH LEES

HOLY TRINITY CATHEDRAL, Auckland - In these days of calf-cloning and genetic juggling, it's hard to recapture the innocent delight that permeates the biblical story of creation. Genesis and genetics don't mix well.

By contrast, Haydn shows a childlike fondness for all the descriptive aspects of the catalogue of nature that underpins his oratorio The Creation.

On Saturday evening, guest conductor Brian Kay, with his bouncy Handelian tempi and neatly clipped approach, was obviously keen to restore the wide-eyed joy in nature that Haydn felt, so the work was never one of those "struggling-to-victory" oratorios, but a happy and glorious one all through.

Soprano Glenese Blake enjoyed the musical sparkle so much that she found her radiant tone early on (hitting Haydn's early, cruel C with supreme confidence) and floated her angelic lines beautifully.

As Adam to her Eve, Rodney Macann sang with sympathetic lyricism, and earlier, as Raphael, he found a boisterous voice for the sea, "rolling in foaming billows", and a long and gooey bottom-E-flat for the inevitable worm.

In equal form, Kenneth Cornish's burnished tenor shone in the descriptive recitatives, and his loving care over a line such as "Steps on the silver moon through silent night" was moving. Specially fine were the trios, where Haydn turns away from the church manner of Handel towards the operatic style of Mozart, and writes music of great charm and vigour.

Not more vigorous than the choruses though, as the choir proved with its crisp, fugal entries and inner-sprung quaver lines creating an enjoyably wide choral firmament at the same time as it asserted with one voice but many parts the unified firmament of nature.

Pipers Sinfonia, a new band on the block, was a great asset.

With a slightly low tuning, an authentic approach, lots of carefully painted woodwind touches, and a star continuo player in James Tibbles, it provided a late-18th-century sound that added enormously to this re-creation of The Creation - surely Haydn's most joyful church music.