Performance: NZ Chamber Orchestra

Town Hall

Review: Heath Lees

It's a funny thing, but you just need to hear the first few notes of an Aaron Copland piece to recognise immediately the unique sound of this American composer, whose Appalachian Spring set the concert off to such an effective start.

Warm, beautifully controlled string sound painted in the impressive backdrops of the open prairie; the slap-happy, square-dance sections were made to sound like boisterous fun, while the famous Shaker tune positively danced along.

At the end, some sparkling contributions by flute, bassoon and (especially) clarinet made for a long and spellbinding diminuendo into silence.

Mahler can often be recognised by the huge number of musicians he calls for, but early last century, Schoenberg reduced the scale of his Songs of a Wayfarer to a handful, for private performances in Vienna.

It says much for the Austrian composer that even dividing his scores by a factor of 12 does not detract from their musical effect. And the singer - New Zealand tenor Keith Lewis - is given even more dramatic point by appearing more exposed, even vulnerable, when the large orchestral carpet of sound is removed. A fascinating experience this, to hear such music in marvellous microcosm.

In a miracle of timing, the orchestra had prepared their performance of Lilburn's Diversions to coincide with the exact date of the composer's 85th birthday, and a happy hallful of people rose to the occasion in an impromptu rendering of Happy Birthday To You.

More musically, Diversions showed its verve and invention through a committed performance that moved purposefully through landscapes of Coplandesque grandeur to the cheeky world of 1930s pastiche, with sly quotes from other music laced tartly into the texture.

Keith Lewis reappeared for the Serenade by Benjamin Britten, and his precision-turned, effortless head-voice seemed to suit the mood better than in the earlier, more romantic Mahler.

Ed Allan's horn was cold and unyielding at times, but the drooping and dragging semitones in the Elegy were enormously effective, while the fast-paced, gossamer strings and bugle-call lines of the Hymn to Diana sounded "excellently bright."