Auckland Philharmonia at the Town Hall

On his first visit with the Auckland Philharmonia, four years ago, American conductor Christopher Wilkins gave us a generous helping of music from his own country - his stirring account of Samuel Barber's First Symphony is still keenly remembered by many.

Last Thursday he turned his attention to English composers, welcoming us with all the exhilaration and high jinks possible in Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.

How easily one surrendered to Britten's giddying virtuosity in drawing so much out of Purcell's hornpipe, from grandioso theme to those final bars in which headstrong strings succumb to the greater orchestral might. It was the showcase its composer intended.

The second half of the concert was devoted to Vaughan Williams. The almost mystical rapture of the Tallis Fantasia, dramatically presented with a small group of players up in the choir stalls, could sometimes be seen in Wilkins' body, as he poised and let the glorious sound surround him and pour into the auditorium.

Then came the raging magnificence of the Sixth Symphony, Williams' response to the horrors of World War II.

Its Allegro swept off in a fury, lunging across rhythmic vortexes. Wilkins captured this and, during the obsessional tread of the second movement, I could hear more of a connection with the acerbic canvases of Shostakovich, an impression strengthened in the bitter Scherzo, when cynical tenor saxophone crooned over sidedrum and twittering violas.

The Epilogue, twisting its contemplative course in a no-man's tonality, brought the concert to a hushed close.

 

This Symphony was the high point of the programme, although many had probably come to hear Alexander Ivashkin in the newly discovered Brahms Cello Concerto.

This proved a curiosity and will, I suspect, remain one. Ivashkin is a charismatic performer and took a few liberties, right from the very Slavic rubato in his opening cadenza, although the outer movements taxed him as he was called upon to be both violinist and cellist.

The Andante was unmitigatedly lovely, as he relaxed and gave his all to one of Brahms' most lyrical utterances.

Review

* What: Auckland Philharmonia
* Where: Auckland Town Hall
* Reviewer: William Dart