Auckland Philharmonia at the Bruce Mason Centre

By WILLIAM DART

The Auckland Philharmonia's Midwinter Masterpieces series has been given a new look, conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya informed us before Saturday's concert. Everything's back-to-front now: the orchestra will start with a major symphonic work and might even end with an overture.

One of the reasons for all this is to ensure that audiences will be at their freshest for the most demanding work of the programme but, on Saturday, Dvorak's eminently approachable Seventh Symphony needed no such concessions.

Blending the often disparate elements that Dvorak deals out, Harth-Bedoya brought the opening Allegro maestoso to life with clear textures and well-sprung rhythms. And when it came to the Poco Adagio slow movement, the woodwind sang like the birds in the Bohemian forests while the horns hinted at all manner of romantic mysteries.

The insinuating lilt of the Scherzo (imagine Johann Strauss with a Czech accent) made such an immediate appeal, despite the occasional edge to the violin tone, that it drew a murmur of applause, tactfully swept away when Harth-Bedoya made an adroit segue into a stirring finale.

After interval, Arvo Part's short but potent Silouans Song, a tribute to the legacy of the Athonite monk, was a showcase for the strings, who didn't quite convey the sense of rapture that this score can and should deliver.

For many, Stephen De Pledge playing Mozart's A major Concerto would have been the drawcard. The pianist did the work justice, with elegant phrasing and limpid tone against a sympathetic orchestral backdrop.

The Adagio, one of the composer's most heart-rending, was not burdened with the unnecessary ornamentation that some pianists add these days and De Pledge showed a real gift when it came to chromatic sighs. The final Rondo was a frothy delight.

The programme did end with an overture - that of Rossini's William Tell, which, despite its Lone Ranger and Tonto associations, is really one of the great Romantic tone poems. John Eckstein and his team of cellists introduced themselves harmoniously, the woodwind triumphed in their pastoral response and Rossini's headlong rush to the final cadence made for an exciting close to the concert.