The Southern Cross Soloists at the Auckland Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART

The cheeky introductions started when the Southern Cross Soloists took the stage, with leader Paul Dean admitting that his arrangement of the Mozart K 415 Piano Concerto "gets changed all the time; in fact I changed it 20 minutes ago".

Despite skilful playing, the Mozart needed a re-think rather than a tweaking, a more radical rewrite to ensure the strings weren't missed.

All in all, one wondered why the Australians didn't simply programme his K 452 Quintet and be done with it.

A Trio by Georges Auric, introduced in terms of the Le Mans raceway and Disney's Dumbo, was light-as-air stuff, reminding one of the composer's many bubbling film scores. Its second movement dug for deeper emotions and the players realised it.

There was more substance after interval in the form of Gillian Whitehead's new Quintet, introduced by Dean, sans quips.

Although Whitehead claims classical inspirations, the score was still rich in her subtle, rippling rhythms and customary burnished timbres, whether in lean unison or moments where the wind instruments clustered protectively around low, open piano sonorities.

The pungent exchanges in the pages surrounding Tania Frazer's oboe cadenza were finely chiselled in space; they brought their own remembrances of things past as did the final bars, played out over inside-the-piano glissandi, where the composer's flute and piano piece Taurangi came to mind.

It was evident from Dean's introduction that the musicians appreciated the commission; the astoundingly good performance made one realise just how much.

It was back to affectionate slanging for Beethoven's Opus 16 Quintet, with pianist Kevin Power describing his colleagues' instruments as a bunch of plumbing problems.

However, there were no problems in this resonant and beautifully contoured performance.

So resonant that one welcomed the space of the town hall auditorium.

The pliant wind ensemble, especially in the second movement, was admirable; the phrasing and musicianly interchanges of the final Rondo perfection.

An encore of Mack the Knife (not the Louis Armstrong version, we were warned) started and ended on an elegiac note but in between the players paraded their potential as a classy cabaret band.