Auckland Philharmonia at the Auckland Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART



Few of Auckland Philharmonia's guest conductors return as regularly as Werner Andreas Albert.

Over the past six years he has given us everything from Liszt to Lutoslawski and has premiered New Zealand works by Jack Body and Martin Lodge. Finally, he has brought us the repertoire that secured his international reputation.

Hardcore Hindemith enthusiasts will know Albert's encyclopaedic recordings of the complete orchestral works, and the German composer's 1921 Ragtime proved an effervescent opener.

Jollity was had by all in this wacky few minutes from the jazz-crazed 20s, a flapper take on a Bach fugue. If ragtime occasionally lapsed into rumpty-tum march, it was all part of the fun in what sometimes sounded like a delirious Ivesian scramble.

Albert is also a great enthusiast for the music of Max Reger and led the orchestra in what was probably the New Zealand premiere of his Serenade Opus 95 a year before the piece's centenary.

This Serenade may have been a little long-winded to some, but who cares when it is all sustained so effortlessly that a 15-minute first movement seems to last half the time.

Undeniably easy-on-the-ear, Reger's style is closest to what we associate with the Warner Bros period of Erich Korngold.

There was exquisitely tinted woodwind playing and the orchestra seemed to relax into the work's welcoming spaciousness. With the string section divided into two bodies (one with mutes and one without), Reger's call-and-response writing proved as diverting visually as it was aurally.

After interval, Nikolai Demidenko gave the impression of an "interpretation-in-progress", with Brahms' Second Concerto, understandably so when the piece has only been in his repertoire a matter of months.

The opening bars warned us that Demidenko would be taking his time, giving his part ample weight and deliberation, even if lightness was sometimes sacrificed. Accuracy was not high on the pianist's priorities, most noticeably in consistently split octaves and a patch in the Finale loose enough to qualify as stride piano.

The Russian's tactics of weighing every gesture worked best in the scherzo, which also had the strongest orchestral contribution; however, coupled with a lack of fire in the orchestra, the same approach made for a laborious Andante.