New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall

Reviewed by WILLIAM DART

Much ink has been spilled on pianist Lang Lang, and his appearance with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra last Friday gave a capacity audience the chance to check out the Chinese wunderkind for themselves.

Among the numerous concertos at this soloist's fingertips, there are stronger works than Chopin's E minor. But from the beginning, Lang Lang was a lithe advocate, blending his pearly tones with the resinous bassoon and burnished horn colours that give the first movement its character.

Conductor Edo de Waart and his strings waxed elegiac in the opening bars of the Larghetto, a lead quickly taken up by Lang Lang. The pianist's rubato may have been a little ripe for some, but it only momentarily affected the ensemble.

The Finale was a canter and a half, or so Lang Lang seemed to be indicating when he started tapping both feet enthusiastically on the floor. His delivery was mostly graceful and whimsically so. However, towards the end, when passage-work started to whirr and thicken, one longed for earlier translucencies.

The encore was latter-day Liberace. Soiree de Vienne, Alfred Grunfeld's transcription of Strauss' Fledermaus waltz, drove the audience to a frenzy, as Lang Lang managed in just over four minutes what some might spend six over. Flashy, splashy, trashy and even a little bashy ... but kind of fun all the same.

Perhaps the real star of the evening was the Dutch conductor, making his first appearance with the orchestra. The Leonora No 3, which launched the concert, had been a model of balance and phrasing, without sacrificing the rustic punch of Beethoven's final pages.

After interval we heard what a distinguished Mahlerian can do with Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony.

The opening stirred as if new to the ears, with thunderclaps of chords that seemed double rather than single fortissimo.

Yet, once the clangour had retreated, the Moderato theme sobbed in the appointed waltz time.

After this came a deliciously considered slow movement, a somewhat phlegmatic Scherzo and a bracingly virtuoso Finale.

Little wonder that, after that tumultuous accelerando had carried us over the finishing line, one could almost have wished for an orchestral encore as well.