Auckland Philharmonia at Aotea Centre

John Psathas' View from Olympus had been a contender for solo spot when the Auckland Philharmonia's Thursday concert was in the planning stages.

Its replacement, Joe Duddell's Ruby, proved to be a paper-thin affair, with a jokey title taken from the Cockney slang for curry, running the gamut from mambo to minimalism, with many a lurching style-shift.

Scots percussionist Colin Currie was charismastic, giving Ruby what glow it had.

He inspired some snappy contributions from orchestral soloists, particularly trumpeter Viktor Kisnichenko and pianist David Guerin, but how one's heart went out to the strings in the second movement, playing what sounded like backings for crooner vocals.

The most striking moments were visual, with the effervescent Currie dressed for comfort in red open-necked shirt, mellifluously malleting marimba one minute and then taking a three-second dash to the other side of the conductor to bop away on drum kit.

Wagner's Lohengrin Prelude at the beginning of the concert had seemed too tentative, with the orchestra locked behind Currie's panavision spread of percussion.

After interval, Elgar's First Symphony effortlessly dwarfed everything that had preceded it.

Conductor Paul Mann introduced the work from the heart. Here was "the English Mahler", a piece that was "much more than tweed suits and big cigars" and above all - who could resist this? - a "search for a tune".

It was an unstintingly noble quest, although some may have found the tempo of the opening Andante a little too much.

By the Allegro, Mann had relaxed and drew a performance of great suppleness from his players. Musical dialogues emerged from all over the stage, as march and idyll were reconciled, often within phrases of one another.

The intensity did not dim. The Allegro molto was a saturnine scherzo - imagine Mahler taking a stroll in an English country lane - and Mann's pursuing of Elgar's often filigree scoring in the Adagio was single-minded.

Taking a lead from the composer's own recording, there was no undue lingering over passing beauties.

Elgar's vast Finale ended our quest with optimism and poetry and, I'm sure, eagerness all around to have a return visit from the English conductor.

What: Auckland Philharmonia
Where: Aotea Centre