Auckland Chamber Orchestra at the Town Hall Concert Chamber

By WILLIAM DART

Peter Scholes introduced Lissa Meridan's tuning the head of a pin before conducting its premiere. Reading from her diary, he warned us to listen to the words without making too much of their meaning; they were fey and fanciful, images of monks chanting in the top storey of one's head, and the problems of putting out the trash without spilling anything.

The piece was the highlight of the concert, and even if tuning was not always so smoothly effected in the orchestra, Meridan had taken some care in this area. In the first five minutes, the gradual journey to the clear waters of tonality was beautifully handled.

There were many echoes to be heard or even overheard. The repeated piano quavers reminded me of Terry Riley, and a little later there was Copland in the clear woodwind writing.

Yet Meridan's sound palette is her own, creating fluttering minimalist textures with bass, cellos and harp, and finding just the right place in the score for a martinet side-drum.

There were more power struggles in the tonal domain as tuning the head of a pin took its time signing off, with some massive and roughly delivered chords.

In the end, the score seemed to float into another world, with woodwind trills, chanting, the sound of breathing and a final chime of a bell.

Two Mozart works were less happy, marred by edgy violin intonation and terrifying sounds constantly breaking forth from the horns.

Pianist Richard Mapp was cool and collected for most of the B flat Concerto K 595, making as much of heart-rending minor passages as the instrument would allow, although cadenzas were sometimes wanting in definition.

The G minor Symphony K 550, with most repeats observed, seemed long, although its Andante had some of the best playing of the evening, with inexorable crescendos and sonorous climaxes.

The Minuet had an agreeable swing, even if the acrid and merciless wind chords that smothered the Finale gave the impression that Prokofiev might have popped in from another century and detuned Mozart's harmonies.