The NZSO National Youth Orchestra at the Auckland Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART

Benjamin Zander has a special gift. It showed on the faces of the members of the NZSO National Youth Orchestra - and in their music-making.

Here was the cream of our young musicians, the orchestral players of tomorrow, immersed in the testing worlds of Ives, Stravinsky and Brahms, and emerging victorious.

Zander is a kindly, avuncular presence on the podium. This man would make even the most sceptical believe that Charles Ives' idiosyncratic works have a God-given rightness to them.

Discussing the American composer's Three Places in New England, he had us chanting rhythms and he himself unselfconsciously sang us a Stephen Foster tune in a light, sentimental tenor. A discussion of the first movement was saved for last because, I suspect, of Zander's determination to stress Ives' political intent.

The orchestra's performance positively bristled with the energy of youth and, after all, the rough-and-tumble marches of "Putnam's Camp" do come from a young lad's militaristic dreams. There was the crispest of phrasing, especially in the first piece, where it is so essential, while the strings effortlessly laid out a misty and mysterious Housatonic River setting for Ives' final vision.

Zander and the orchestra caught the fairytale in Stravinsky's Firebird. The opening shared the same sense of stillness as Ives' "Housatonic" but when the villainous Kastchei took stage, all hell broke brilliantly loose.

Brahms' Fourth Symphony would be a big ask for any orchestra after a mere week's existence, but the students responded magnificently.

The opening Allegro non troppo pitted soaring melodies against crackling rhythms, the Intermezzo-like slow movement put the remarkable woodwind and horns centre stage, and the whole orchestra dazzled us in the Scherzo. Zander pepped up the tempo here and it was a real coup; suddenly there seemed to be a Russian connection in those relentless patternings. The closing Chaconne thrilled with its sumptuous climaxes but also engaged with its sense of cohesion.

There was another star on this occasion. Zander hailed our town hall as acoustically one of the finest halls he had been in, and on this occasion it certainly lived up to all his praise.