Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall

Sebastian Lang-Lessing

Janacek's Jealousy proved a captivating opener for the final concert of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's APN News & Media series.

Originally intended as an overture for the opera Jenufa, these six minutes are so dramatic they almost give the plot away.

Conductor Sebastian Lang-Lessing was at the helm of the brilliant orchestral crossfire, with only the violins being sorely tested, during one of their stratospheric outbursts.

Torleif Thedeen is a familiar visitor and, when last here in 2003, he delivered a thrilling account of Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante.

On Thursday, from the opening bars of Dvorak's Cello Concerto, it seemed the cellist had a perfect partner in Lang-Lessing.

If the German conductor began with scrupulous attention to the composer's directions, Thedeen used his opening pages to show his full expressive arsenal, from massive power chords to infectious lyricism.

Alongside Thedeen, with his singing tone, Dvorak's evocative woodwind writing proved an inspiration to the orchestra.

Flautist Catherine Bowie was first, duetting with Thedeen in the molto sostenuto section; her colleagues followed, with Gordon Richards' clarinet particularly eloquent in the idyllic Adagio.

Both soloist and orchestra were at ease with the shifting moods of the work's Finale, from robust and genial to the wistfully lyrical. Thedeen's encore, a Bach Sarabande, floated across the audience.

After interval it was time for Mahler's First Symphony, a mighty Titan of a score if ever there was.

Lang-Lessing's overview of the work was thorough, even if the playing was disturbingly untidy at times, the same old bogies of ensemble playing, and tired string tone, especially when the cellos introduced their "Ging heut morgens ubers Feld" theme.

Perhaps one could have been wooed more by the Landler of the second movement, which seemed a tad brutal, although the veering from funeral cortege to tavern klezmer in the third was adroitly navigated.

The Finale, from its opening theatrical flourish, clearly had the audience rapt and held them so for the duration.

The final pages, marked "Triumphal" by their composer, were just that.

The great Bruno Walter once described this symphony as "proliferating in invention and pulsing with passion" and "music that has been lived".

And so it was on Thursday night.