Performance: Auckland Philharmonia

Holy Trinity Cathedral

Review: Heath Lees


It's always a great relief when an item suddenly grabs the audience during an otherwise ho-hum concert.

So it was a pleasure on Sunday to hear the orchestra's percussionist, Leonard Sakofsky, giving pinpoint accuracy of tempo and beautifully controlled expression to the outer movements of a Vivaldi concerto in an arrangement for marimba and small orchestra.

Swapping to the vibraphone for the middle movement was a great idea too, since it brought a warm and welcome contrast to the incisive bite of the marimba's tone.

Less enjoyable was the percussion concerto that the cathedral's lights supplied as they alternately heated up and cooled down during the afternoon.

Anthony Ritchie's piece "Beginnings," is notable how it gradually comes to birth (Ritchie was partly inspired by the birth of his son, Tristan) and achieves a stable form within surrounding confusion.

The contrasting colours as the music builds its shape, and the sudden falling away at the end were nicely projected by the orchestra. A final silence was long and eloquent.

Instead of appearing as Shakespeare's Puck, Sophia Hawthorne preferred the proud Titania and read a different speech from the one the programme had promised.

Not that it mattered, as the sound system stripped all the body and tone from her voice and sent it reverberating around the walls in a "contagious fog,"

Still, the musical series is named for its Shakespearian connections yet the reading had disappointingly little to do with the fairy scenes and donkey brays of the Midsummer Night's Dream overture that followed.

Overall, the quality of the Philharmonia's playing was not up to its usual standard. In the opening Mozart symphony, for example, the players' ensemble constantly slipped out of focus, and tuning was rough in places.

On the podium, Miguel Harth-Bedoya conducted elegantly but his musicians seemed listless, and the symphony passed with few features and many longeurs.

Hearing a professional orchestra making Mozart sound bland is a disquieting experience. Let's hope it was just an off-day after a tiring week at the ballet.