New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall, Friday and Saturday

Jonathan Lemalu worked well with conductor Matthias Bamert and the NZSO to perform six Mahler songs

Jonathan Lemalu worked well with conductor Matthias Bamert and the NZSO to perform six Mahler songs.

For Aucklanders unable to experience Jonathan Lemalu in person at the 2005 BBC Proms, the chance came on Saturday night when the bass-baritone sang six of Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Lemalu seemed at ease with conductor Matthias Bamert. Signposting emotions to come with facial expressions (consternation before "Revelge", nonchalance before "Lob des hohen Verstands"), the singer captured all the flickering emotions and ironies of Mahler's settings.

The triumph was not all Lemalu's; Bamert's precision with orchestral textures, especially in the grim "Der Tambourg'sell", made one aware of what Leonard Bernstein meant when he talked of Mahler foretelling the horrors of the 20th century from Auschwitz to Vietnam with a rain of beauty.

Gareth Farr's Funambulistic Strains is the latest NZSO concert piece commission, written for trombonist David Bremner.

This crowd-pleaser proved that Farr can romp with the best of them.

Conductor, orchestra and soloist made light of acrobatic demands. From the first bars, punching out Farr's twister of a riff, Bremner was flawless; the orchestra flew fearlessly into bungy jump outbursts.

The colours were many and various, with enough bells for Boris Godunov at one point and a waltz with a mighty backbeat at another, whirling away over chattering brass. A pity, though, that the most engaging touch - muted trombone over string harmonics - was wedded to comparatively insipid musical material.

Bamert took the helm for the second half of Saturday's concert, delivering Brahms's Second Symphony with a naturalness and grace that gave the shifting phrases of its first movement a burnished radiance.

He drew rich sonorities from the strings in the second movement, while the woodwind made their move to 12/8 with the utmost elegance.

Friday's concert consisted of just two symphonies.

Beethoven's Eighth, it must be admitted, set off stolidly; one felt the weight of the orchestral forces and not always for the best. The immaculate Bamert tended to phrasing, but there was a sense of inhibition here, of something greater to come.

And so it did, after interval, with Bruckner's hour-long Sixth Symphony.

There are many unexpected corners and deviations in this, one of the least performed of the Austrian composer's symphonies, and all were argued convincingly for, from that first, fulsome fanfare-like theme brooding away under nervy violin rhythms.

The orchestra was at its finest in the Mahlerian slow movement, searching out and sustaining the more elusive expressive moments.

There are ironies in this score, although less developed than Mahler's, and Bamert caught them. These can be heard in the tungsten filigree of the Scherzo's trio and a sprawling, magnificent Finale, where the conductor's irrepressible body movements made it clear that the eternal spirit of the dance lay somewhere within this mighty colossus.