Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Dvorak Cello Concerto
New Zealand Herald Premier Series
Walker, Lyric for Strings
Dvorak, Cello Concerto
Lutosławski, Concerto for Orchestra
Auckland Town Hall
April 7th
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
The APO’s latest concert at the Auckland Town Hall was the first under the new Covid 19 setting which allows for up to two hundred people at indoor events. With two performances, the “rehearsal” in the morning and the evening concert this meant that 400 people were able to hear the concert. Hopefully next week will see a move to orange setting and the concert with Christian Li will have a completely full Town Hall.
The morning concert opened with a rendition of Happy Birthday and another after the interval. They were for birthday celebrations of a 99-year-old regular concert goer and Carl Wells one of the orchestra’s horn players.
The main work on the programme was Dvorak’s Cello Concerto with soloist Victor Julien-Laferrière, replacing the Russian cellist, Anastasia Kobekina.
Conductor Shiyeon Sung in her first appearance with the APO. guided the orchestra effortlessly through the work with Julien-Laferrière producing a lovely, polished tone from his cello. The orchestra created a sense of an immersive Nature into which Julien-Laferrière, inserted a thread of personal angst.
Throughout the work he played with a mixture of techniques. At times he seemed to caress his instrument with a delicate touch while at other time there was a fierce aggressiveness
He displayed lightning speed in parts of the first movement followed by a lovingly deliberation on the evocative landscapes of the second movement, and some heroic playing in the finale.
The first work on the programme was the 1946 composition Lyric for Strings by the African-American George Walker. The piece had the original dedication of “To my grandmother”, a woman he had known in his youth and who had been a slave (as was his grandfather).
The poetic slow work is a contemplation on her life and a reflection on Americas past and owes a little to his classmate, Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings
The piece alternates dramatically between lush harmonies and stark solo passages, the warm voluptuous sequences intersected by passages of foreboding and menace. Overall, the work displayed a remarkable breadth of sounds produced from the string orchestra.
Also on the programme was Polish composer Witold Lutosławski’s Concerto written only a few years after Walker’s work but at a time in Eastern Europe where modernism was censured. While the work was developed from folk tunes, they were given new harmonies with some added atonal features.
The work blazed with precision, clarity and potency allowing all the instruments to display their individual virtuosity.
The blaring woodwind sounds of the first movement seemed as though a massive steam train was bursting into the auditorium followed by an extraordinary mixture of mechanical and natural sounds from the shimmering strings. The final explosive movement which owed much to Prokofiev and Shostakovich was filled with moments of mystery, rogue experimentation and some intriguing sounds from the piano and harp.
Next Concert
Christian Li Plays
Auckland Town Hall
April 21st
Conductor Vincent Hardaker
Violin Christian Li
Fauré Pelléas et Mélisande: Suite
Saint-Saëns Introduction and Rondo capriccioso
Ravel Tzigane
Mussorgsky Night on the Bare Mountain
Borodin Symphony No.2
New Zealand Arts Review 