Auckland Philharmonia at the Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART

I had been looking forward to Liwei Qin's appearance with the Auckland Philharmonia after his fine performance of the Barber Cello Concerto last year, but it was not to be. In his place, we had 19-year-old Auckland student Victoria Simonsen, this year's New Zealand Young Musician of the Year.

We were not cheated. Simonsen tackled the Elgar Concerto with the vehemence and poetry of a young Jacqueline du Pre. From those soul-wrenching chords of the opening bars through to the scurrying Finale (the only place one heard Simonsen's stamina taxed) this was a performance with attitude and vigour.

Drawing some lovely sounds out of her instrument, which was commissioned a few years back from Cambridge luthier Noel Sweetman, she made the Adagio an elegy to remember, working in perfect rapport with the orchestra.

The concert began and ended in two different worlds. For the first 12 minutes, we had Alan Hovhaness' classic piece of eco-music, And God Created Whales, poignant when the trombones duet with the whalesong but trite when the orchestra surges in folksy response.

The second half of the concert had conductor Vladimir Verbitsky on home turf with Shostakovich's mighty 11th Symphony.

Supposedly a portrait of the 1905 Peasants' Revolt in St Petersburg, but intended as a critique of the Soviet suppression of the Hungarians during their 1956 revolt, this mammoth score is one of the last century's great symphonies.

The orchestra was superb, keeping spirits and momentum on full-scale alert throughout the work's hour-plus running time. The first movement chilled with its eerie scene-setting and the Finale thrilled with its no-holds-barred onslaught on the senses.

Some remain immune to the power of this music. But the Town Hall audience knew better, applauding with the enthusiasm usually reserved for Tchaikovsky.