Philharmonia repertoire goes boldly into deep space

By HEATH LEES

TOWN HALL, Auckland - You don't hear Rodrigo's Cinco piezas infantiles every day of the week. In fact, if it weren't for the Philharmonia's policy of presenting new and colourful music whenever possible, you probably wouldn't hear it at all.

Which would be a pity, since the music is so colourful. Its aims are modest - a handful of pieces written around the experiences of childhood, full of easily digested effects, beautifully written for orchestra, and in Thursday evening's Royal and SunAlliance concert, ushered through with a fatherly hand and an ear for detail from conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya.

But even Rodrigo's vibrant curtain-raiser paled in comparison to the playing of solo violinist Pierre Amoyal, who provided that rare but transforming experience of turning an old and familiar piece into something rich and strange.

Hugging his famous "Kochanski" Stradivarius fiddle and swaying eloquently with a stance that combined the arching flamboyance of Paganini with the grace of a wind-surfer, he produced some unbelievably beautiful sounds that positively lit up the hall and re-possessed Bruch's over-played First Violin Concerto as the work of passionate genius that it is.

Amoyal's ability to bring out every step of the finale's instrumental ballet was breathtaking, and the only pity was that the orchestra tended to lag in its accompaniment, here and in the earlier movements. If you didn't know better you'd have thought the players were too busy listening to the soloist - but who could blame them?

All the big guns were out for Strauss's Thus Spake Zarathustra - two harps, triple woodwind, eight horns, extra strings, even the city organist up top, coaxing every ounce of life from the old bellows.

And the sound matched the visual experience admirably. Undaunted by the excessive popularity of the opening two minutes (Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey finding it's the right year at last) the orchestra launched out into the music's deep space and navigated skilfully through its wide contrasts, continuous tempo changes and subtle shifts of mood to the stuttering, enigmatic pulsations of the work's close, and a hushed silence.