Review: Zephyr and Diedre Irons at Auckland Town Hall

According to Edward Allen, Zephyr's horn player, the five instruments of the wind quintet "isolate the lovely part of the orchestra" and, on Tuesday, the Wellington group's concert lived up to his words.

What better description could there be for the mellow blend of chords opening Mozart's Piano Quintet K 452? The Allegro moderato may have been slightly on the sedate side, but this lent Mozart's rippling passagework a marvellous limpidity and ensured clarity in syncopation.

The Larghetto, with its Schubertian modulations, offered one of the evening's treasured moments when Diedre Irons' scales cascaded through shifting woodwind sonorities.

The five wind players caught the idyllic subtlety of Samuel Barber's particular brand of Americana in Summer Music. Anthony Ritchie's Wind Quintet impressed with the sureness and confidence of this Dunedin composer's craft and its performance suggested that Zephyr holds the piece in high esteem.

The restless energies of the opening were anchored by trills seemingly fuelled from some greater force; one memorable touch had a gust of melody sweeping through the ensemble, instrument by instrument.

In the second movement, the folk-song By the Dry Cardrona floated in the high clear air after a series of searing outbursts, brilliantly instigated by clarinetist Phil Green. Only in the third movement did a weak meno mosso melody threaten the cohesion that had been built up.

The evening ended with the very Gallic joie de vivre of Poulenc's Sextet. Irons and her colleagues made a sophisticated romp of it, whether high-stepping in a gallop, or sinking back into its tongue-in-cheek sentiment.