Paul Serotsky: Northland Sinfonia, Whangārei Youth Music fusion superb

Although short of a "standard" symphony orchestra by around 25 strings, it was still a truly glorious sight. Photo / Getty Images

CLASSIC NOTES

We've all heard the hackneyed old saying, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." With apologies to Aristotle, even though it sounds impressive, more often than not it's just a truism.

It's the "than nots", where the unexpected overtakes the arithmetic, that give it meaning. For instance, plain flour, milk, eggs, salt and pepper add up to minimally less than their sum: batter pudding. In the right hands, though, the whole is immeasurably greater – that supreme culinary experience, Yorkshire Pud.

Another such instance occurred in Forum North on October 20 when Northland Sinfonia (NS) and the orchestra of Whangārei Youth Music (WYM) joined forces. NS is an amateur orchestra; WYM's is likewise. So, combining them just makes a bigger amateur orchestra, a whole that's the sum of its parts, right?

That's not looking down my nose at amateur orchestras – I've had far too much experience of them to make that mistake. But, if each part plays as it normally does, summing them should produce a similar result, shouldn't it?

Well, here it didn't, not by a long chalk! Throughout this concert, the average elevation of audience eyebrows was around the average audience hairline. (If anyone's stayed put, they weren't listening!).

For starters, the orchestral array really looked the business: 24 strings, double-woodwind, four horns (!), three trumpets, four trombones, tuba, tympani and four percussionists. Although short of a "standard" symphony orchestra by around 25 strings, it was still a truly glorious sight.

Then again, whilst the programme – Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave, Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol, Saint-Saëns's Bacchanale, Mascagni's Intermezzo (from Cavalleria Rusticana) and the first movement of Dvořák's Eighth Symphony – was easy on the ear, for players it was hugely challenging.

The difference between "playing the notes" and "performing the music" is similar to that between "reading through a play" and "enacting a drama". Conductors Roger McClean (WYM, first three items) and Naotake Fukuoka (NS, latter items) seemed well aware of this. They'd really done their homework; and on the podium proved it emphatically.

The "glorious sight" was eclipsed by the glorious sound (in a half-decent concert hall, it would have sounded even better). They fulfilled the conductors' interpretative demands with admirable unanimity, expressive nuance and real fire in their collective belly – presumably the complementary factions of "maturity and experience" and "youthful talent and enthusiasm" had struck sparks off one another.

Admittedly, there were some "fluffs", but not many, and nothing serious; the one misjudgement was cutting Rimsky-Korsakov's harp cadenza: a couple of flourishes from the synthesiser "harp" would have been far preferable to the "jolt" caused by its absence. But these were insignificant, all-but-submerged by the enveloping sweep of the music.

Even professionals can render Tchaikovsky's piece as dull as ditchwater, whereas here was electrifyingly cumulative tension. In their hands, Rimsky-Korsakov's masterpiece of orchestration radiated Iberian passion, thrilled with pulsating rhythms. The Saint-Saëns similarly thrummed with vitality and sultry "Eastern promise".

Remarkably refined string tone and phrasing, enriched by subtle winds, made Mascagni's famous melody sing scrumptiously, whilst their Dvořák was attractively authentic – irrepressible Czech rhythms, idiomatically-turned tunes, pastoral moods and awe-inspiring climaxes. And the encore, Mussorgsky's brief Gopak, had all the colour and vigour you could wish.

It was a short concert, but no-one felt short-changed – Aristotle had come up trumps with music-making as potent as Yorkshire pud! Any "down" side? Just one – too few witnesses to a brilliant orchestral concert by our local amateurs. So, keep your eyes peeled for the next one.