Earthy blast from the four winds

On Sunday, Auckland Chamber Orchestra resumed its 2004 season with one of its most attractive concerts to date, certainly in the music chosen.

Attending to the strengths of his ensemble and avoiding repertoire that finds the ACO competing with larger groups, conductor Peter Scholes welcomed us with a lesser-known Haydn symphony.

The nickname of the work might be The Philosopher but it could well have been The Adventurer for the pleasure that Haydn takes in featuring the pungent, earthy tones of two French horns and a pair of cors anglais.

With an agile tempo, and expressive string playing, the longish Adagio was well sustained.

Although two Presto movements asked a little more of the violins than they were comfortably able to deliver, the Minuet had a grace and artistry that one would expect from a fully professional chamber orchestra.

If straggling second violins proved an irritation in Ivan Zagni's The Cospatrick Tragedy, they did not totally hinder the impact of a powerful score.

Inspired by a maritime tragedy of 1875 in which a fire at sea resulted in the death of 471 passengers and crew, the Auckland composer makes impressive use of his characteristically muscular lyricism. Evoking the calm spaciousness of Tudor music at one turn then jolting us with terse, contemporary idioms, this was a moving and sometimes disturbing score.

After interval, many must have been caught unaware when they returned to their seats to find only five players on stage. For this performance of Charles Ives' The Unanswered Question, we did not see the strings but instead heard ethereal chords wafting in through an opened door. All we could see was trumpeter Philip Lloyd posing the composer's eternal question, and being answered by an increasingly irascible woodwind quartet. An imaginative and winning presentation.

The evening ended with Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante. Violinist Dimitri Atanassov and violist Robert Ashworth were energetic soloists and blended well. There were times when all was not as smooth as it might have been, particularly on the orchestral side, but in many others, especially in the Andante, the two men effortlessly conveyed the dramatic interchange that makes this work so special.

Review

* Who: Auckland Chamber Orchestra

*Where: Auckland Town Hall Concert Chamber

*Reviewer: William Dart