Auckland Chamber Orchestra at the Auckland Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART

Bach, Beethoven and Ducatis, the designer title of the Auckland Chamber Orchestra's Sunday concert, caused me concern a few weeks ago when I feared the scheduled Anthony Ritchie compositions had been replaced by a French composer of unknown provenance.

They hadn't, of course, and now I've learned that Triumphs and Harley-Davidsons aren't the only bikes on the block.

On the night, one couldn't have hoped for a more effective opener than Ritchie's Remember Parihaka and conductor Peter Scholes drew some finely chiselled playing from his ensemble, particularly with the woodwind.

Later, the composer's Flute Concerto was more problematic and needed a more professional orchestral sheen to register fully.

Soloist Alexa Still gave Ritchie's grateful writing all the light and shade it needed.

My misgivings lie with the Concerto itself, which is most convincing when Ritchie isn't drawn into populist riffs, including a rather nudging reference to a Muttonbirds song in the Finale.

A flute solo from the first movement was effortlessly lovely and there was also an admirable consistency of tone in the central Lento, with its striking duet between Still and bass clarinettist Warwick Robinson.

The second concerto of the evening was C.P.E. Bach's D minor, a score that positively bubbles with self-confidence and determination. Still was beyond reproach, even if some might have preferred it to be rendered on a period instrument. Orchestrally, however, there were too many loopholes from wandering tempi to moments of worrying indecision.

Still took her leave with an attractive encore. Jumping Fish by the American composer Robert Dick pulled out every trick in the flautist's manual from glissandi to multiphonics, and cast them smoothly into a virtuoso 12 bar blues. The audience and her colleagues on stage were equally enchanted.

The concert ended with Beethoven's First Symphony which didn't really come off the page. It was competent and on the complacent side, with little of the wicked humour that is needed. Intonation was a constant irritation, but less so than the many missed opportunities for crackling rhythms.