Auckland Philharmonia at Auckland Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART

Patrons expecting the Philharmonia's Thursday concert to start off with Schubert's Unfinished Symphony may have been mystified, on entering the hall, to find the stage populated by fewer than a dozen music stands, clustered around a harpsichord.

Fears that Schubert was not about to be thrust back to the Baroque were soon put to rest. Yuri Bashmet had decided to launch the programme with Telemann's G major Viola Concerto, the first of the Russian violist's three solo offerings.

From the orchestra's opening bars, Bashmet's total authority was evident. When his viola entered, phrase by exquisite phrase, with its characteristic burnished, melancholic tone, his mastery was reaffirmed. The bubbling Allegro nodded gracefully to Vivaldi and the Andante set the soloist against a minimal and immensely sensitive accompaniment.

The viola repertoire is not so extensive, but most string players, and many others, covet Hindemith's Trauermusik, a short elegy written in 1935 on the passing of King George V.

For the seven minutes of Hindemith's work we could have been listening to a top-drawer chamber orchestra. Throughout, there was all the sense of musical dialogue that is so vital to this score, and Bashmet's unerring feeling for tempo and phrasing captured the composer's Ruhig bewegt as few do.

The final page, with Bashmet soaring from the orchestral chorale, was almost a spiritual experience.

Weber's Andante and Rondo ongarese proved a rather surface affair, designed to dazzle. Nevertheless, Bashmet's palette seemed inexhaustible in the various variations. Only once, in the final Rondo, did awkwardness intrude for a few bars.

Two works focused on Bashmet as conductor.

The first movement of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony proved that passion can be particularly effective when complemented by sweetness, and was memorable for some finely sustained crescendos. Colours were revealed in the second movement that might have remained muted in lesser hands.

Tchaikovsky's String Serenade was the concert's surging finale, despite the occasional dicey entry and passing streak of thin tone.

The composer deemed that this work needed a full orchestral performance and Bashmet proved him right. The same forces which produced such thrilling power in the opening movement lent the Elegie the tenderest of intensity.