Auckland Town Hall
Review: Tara Werner
When briefly interviewed on stage before this concert by conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Edwin Carr commented that New Zealand composers are often asked, "Why don't you write real New Zealand music?"
His response was that in his case, it was difficult for him to tell - it was up to concert-goers to decide whether his music had a New Zealand flavour.
Judging from the polite response on Thursday night to Akarana: Four Symphonic sketches for large orchestra, the audience had difficulty making up its mind.
Unlike the highly charged Pacific-oriented music of Gareth Farr, New Zealand's enfant terrible of composition, Carr's music was genteel indeed.
While his orchestration evoked the musical aspects of the Auckland landscape in programmatic fashion, his musical style was strangely old-fashioned, a little like a score from English composer Eric Coates, that doyen of light music.
The four movements were all rather quaint, although not without interest in terms of their instrumentation.
Unusual instrumentation was also an important aspect of the symphony performed - Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No 8. The composer's fascination with tuned percussion meant that the first and last movements had a special cast quite unlike any other of his works.
The Auckland Philharmonia percussion relished the challenge, and the results aurally spoke for themselves. The scherzo also contained some disciplined playing from both the woodwind and brass, while the cellos at the start of the lovely cavatina were in truly lyrical form.
Finally, violinist Mark Steinberg's performance of the evergreen Mendelssohn Violin Concerto was like a contained volcano. His no-holds-barred approach was highly physical, the opening allegro, in particular, performed with short, sharp movements that were almost distracting. He almost danced off the podium in the coda, a process repeated in the finale.
A highly entertaining interpretation that nonetheless underlined genuine musicianship.
<i>Performance:</i> Auckland Philharmonia
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