Bowing out with a bit of Bach

By WILLIAM DART

Last month, Opus Chamber Orchestra rounded off its season with a concert in the spellbinding acoustics of Hamilton's WEL Energy Trust Academy of Performing Arts. Baton in hand, Rita Paczian and her players launched the evening with a sprightly Concerto Grosso by Handel.

In Auckland, Paczian is best known for her association with Bach Musica NZ and on Sunday that group will celebrate the end of its year with the first three parts of Bach's Christmas Oratorio.

"Every German grows up with Bach and Handel," Paczian explains, "and I'm convinced the Christmas Oratorio is the finest piece of baroque Christmas music ever written - it's even better than Messiah."

Paczian knows the territory when it comes to baroque and classical repertoire.

She has studied with early music gurus such as Martin Haselbeck and Helmuth Rilling, and spent three years at the Vienna Akademie working on the operas, symphonies and oratorios of Mozart and Handel.

What brought her here?

"Like most Germans I came with a backpack, doing the tourist thing," she laughs, "but I liked what I saw and thought it would be interesting to come back and see what winter was like."

When she returned in 1993 she settled in Auckland, where she is one of the country's busiest and most adventurous freelance conductors. Risks are all part of the game, and one of the bravest ventures was an extraordinary performance of the Monteverdi Vespers in 1998.

Rita Paczian is a battler. During her engagement with Waikato Opera's Carmen, there was controversy when she replaced the Waikato Symphony Orchestra with two pianists.

"It was purely a matter of what was in the contract. The Waikato Symphony Orchestra was to be augmented by 10 professional players and, when that wasn't done, I insisted on the pianos."

It's a two-way cultural street. Paczian has also taken our musicians and music back to Europe. In 2000, the Bach Musica NZ gave 15 concerts around Germany, culminating in a performance at the International Bach Festival in Leipzig.

Last year, in Essen, she conducted the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen in a special concert to mark International Women's Day: "Alongside Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn we gave the European premiere of Dorothy Buchanan's Peace Fanfare."

The Wellington composer's piece caused problems for the German percussionists, who had to resort to the Teutonic version of Kiwi DIY: "The score calls for a log drum and we couldn't get one, so in the end they had to make one."

There aren't log drums in Sunday's Christmas Oratorio but oboe damore and piccolo trumpet add all the sheen needed to this gloriously joyful music. Paczian runs through some of the numbers, and the evangelist's aria Frohe Hirten with flute obbligato is an obvious favourite.

"We're so fortunate to have tenor David Hamilton, who is one of the finest evangelists in Australasia. He has all the intelligence and understanding of the German language that the role demands."

She describes her four soloists - Pepe Becker, Ann Lamont-Low, Hamilton and David Griffiths - as "a quartet that you couldn't better in this country".

The struggle is always there: professionalism doesn't come cheaply. "Back in Germany, when I was musical director of St Jacob's Church in Hamburg, the yearly budget for music was $80,000. Here we must manage on a fraction of that."

But they manage with a zeal that would have had Bach's approval. This Christmas Oratorio promises all the makings of a spectacular seasonal celebration.

* Bach Musica NZ play Bach's Christmas Oratorio, St-Matthew-in-the-City, Sunday, 5pm.