Auckland Philharmonia at the Aotea Centre

By WILLIAM DART

The Auckland Philharmonia launched Thursday's concert in the best possible way with the premiere of a New Zealand work.

Matthew Crawford's A Place to Lose and Find Yourself, a 10-minute evocation of a wind-tossed Piha in minimalist style, was the winner of the orchestra's Kiwi Snapshot competition.

There is an individual voice here. The rhythmic patternings may echo those of Philip Glass, but well-tuned ears will appreciate the subtle harnessing of the score into the safe haven of 4/4.

Crawford has a feeling for colour and there are too many deft effects to list, from glissando string harmonics to the eventual whirr of wind machine, although an over-persistent tongue-drum was an irritation at one point.

Auckland pianist Henry Wong Doe has done well on the international competition circuit and was making his debut with the AP in Prokofiev's Third Concerto.

With a winning platform manner alternating between the insouciant and languid, Wong Doe proved that all that glitters can indeed be gold. Playing Prokofiev's more jagged textures as if the keys were white-hot, he also took time out to luxuriate in the Nocturne-like outpourings of the second movement.

In the opening Allegro his glissandi had to be seen to be believed. In the Finale his chordal playing was a cause for marvel.

The orchestral musicians were able partners under conductor Fabio Mechetti, who held the demanding score together, especially in the lurching third variation of the second movement.

After a number of curtain calls, Wong Doe responded with a rather scuffed account of Chopin's E flat major Etude. It was a shame, when something simpler would have afforded more satisfying refreshment.

After interval, the conductor, also making his first appearance with the orchestra, didn't convey the primal power of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.

There was a deadly cosiness and predictability in the first movement, played without a repeated Exposition. What should have been earth-moving sforzandi were polite inflections.

The Adagio bloomed only occasionally and, after a lumbering Scherzo in which one felt the weight of every beat in the bar, the Finale made some recompense before Machetti got into the same canter that had so hindered the opening Allegro.