Concert Review: NZSO with Hilary Hahn, Musikverein Vienna, Austria

NZSO prove their world-class status at Musikverein. Photo / Supplied

For an orchestra as unknown in Europe as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, its sellout debut on Saturday in the Groser Saal of the Musikverein Wien was a historic event.

NZSO artistic director Pietari Inkinen responded with intellect and elan by curating a programme that engaged history.

Germanic romanticism is obsessed with creation myths and Douglas Lilburn's Aotearoa Overture (1940) and Jean Sibelius' Concerto for Violin in D minor (1905) met that desire. Their conjoining also reflected the inspiration that Lilburn drew from Sibelius; Inkinen and concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppanen's dual Finnish/New Zealand identities; and the tendency of middle-Europeans to mythologise those antipodes.

From the outset of the Lilburn, Inkinen articulated a measured and minimal style of conducting, proof that he prepared his orchestra in rehearsal and on tour, oriented towards the orchestra's strengths - in the woodwinds, celli and first strings.

The French horns and flugelhorns, present from the fourth bar, were held back a little. This created a warm and light tone that sounded as fresh as the dawning that Lilburn was describing, and suited the hall, acclimatised to strident and brassier tones, beautifully.

American violinist Hilary Hahn, who most of the sell-out house had come to see, joined for the Sibelius Concerto. The orchestra carried their lightness and Inkinen his minimal direction into the concerto to magnificent effect. Hahn played with an athleticism born of the New World, and attacked the vibrato and the top-C notes with ferocity and virtuosity. Inkinen let Hahn go, and coaxed his players to follow - many of them playing with broad smiles and watching Hahn with avidity. Again the woodwinds (plus flute), especially bassoon and oboes, which have a "recitativo" with the solo-violin throughout (notably opening the second Adagio movement), were precise and playful.

Inkinen encouraged playfulness with motif and Hahn used her natural stringency to ply the near-saccharine Slavic moments in the score. It was a triumph, and the audience responded accordingly.

Hahn returned for an encore of a Bach Parita, and more applause.

Then Inkinen and the NZSO played Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony with an interpretive flair and sense of fun that made the most of the symphony's internal tensions (that exasperated Tchaikovsky) between ballet-like major/minor melody and symphonic dissonance. The second movement is carried by brass, including a French horn solo, and the section shaped a distinctive register to meet the orchestra.

For the concluding Allegro movements, Inkinen lifted the tempo, while encouraging the orchestra to heap the melody with sugar each time it returned. This fashioned a festivity (reminiscent of young Leonard Bernstein) and style of Inkinen and the NZSO's own they clearly enjoyed playing.

That emotion boiled over into the rapturous audience response. For an encore Inkinen and orchestra had the audacity to play a Liszt waltz. You could have heard a pin drop as the NZSO three-stepped its way to a new maturity - and another resounding ovation.