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Review by Peter Simpson

Beethoven 7

Auckland Philharmonia

Auckland Town Hall

February 22

Reviewed by Peter Simpson

The three works in the second APO concert of the Premier Series for 2024: Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, and the Overture to Rossini’s The Barber of Seville were all written within a thirty year period, 1786-1816: the Mozart in 1785-86, the Beethoven in 1812, and the Rossini in 1816. This period, on the cusp between the ‘classical’ and ‘Romantic’ periods, is one of the most consequential in the history of music. Each of these works is a masterwork in its own right; collectively they made for a supremely enjoyable and satisfying evening. The APO under Giordano Bellincampi, with South Korean soloist Yeol Eum Son in the Mozart, were in fine fettle.

Rossini just missed out on being a contemporary of Mozart’s by being born in the year after Mozart’s death in 1791; Beethoven was twenty when Mozart died, just on the brink of his great career.

The Overture to The Barber of Seville scurries along entertainingly in Rossini’s instantly recognisable and ingratiating style. It is ‘feel good’ music, clearly enjoyed by the musicians, and bound to put listeners into a receptive frame of mind.

With her pale skin and flamboyant scarlet gown, Yeol Eum Son made a striking visual contrast to the pervasive black-and-white of the orchestra. She proved to be an elegant and forceful soloist plunging instantly and confidently into the minor-key depths and mysteries of one of Mozart’s greatest scores.

One of only two piano concertos in a minor key (the other is No. 20), this work has the most elaborate instrumentation of any of Mozart’s concertos, being scored for one flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings: it is especially rare in Mozart for oboes and clarinets to be used simultaneously. One of the great pleasures of seeing this work performed live is to be able to witness as well as hear the subtle and intricate interplay between the wind instruments and strings so important in the emotional ambience of the music. After the rapt complexities of the long opening movement, the limpid simplicity of the slow movement was ravishing; the deft variations of the finale, too, were finely executed.

Apparently the young Beethoven once witnessed a rehearsal of this concerto (presumably with Wolfgang Amadeus at the keyboard) and remarked to his companion: “We shall never be able to do anything like that’. His own break-through piano concerto No. 3 written in 1800, four years later, shares the same C-minor key. Twelve years later Beethoven’s grand Seventh Symphony was one of the triumphs of his career. It was performed with the composer conducting in Vienna in 2013 at a charity concert for soldiers wounded in a battle with the forces of Napoleon (Beethoven’s fallen hero). The first audience apparently demanded an immediate repeat of the second movement allegretto. While not going quite so far as that, the shouts of acclamation from Auckland’s Town Hall audience registered genuine excitement at the conclusion of this electrifying performance. From the solemn and sonorous opening bars to the disciplined frenzy of the finale this marvellous music engaged both musicians and audience alike.

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IMPASSIONED MUSIC ACROSS THREE CENTURIES.

Reviewed by Peter Simpson

Passion & Mystery

Auckland Philharmonia

Auckland Town Hall

February 15th

Reviewed by Peter Simpson

This was a concert of impassioned music across three centuries. Or four if you count the exquisite Bach encore played by Julian Steckel after his commanding performance of Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto (representing the twentieth century), which was preceded by Gemma Peacock’s sonorous White Horses, representing the 21^st century and followed by Tchaikovsky’s mighty Symphony No. 6, The Pathétique, representing the nineteenth century.

‘Passion & Mystery’ was the opening concert of the Auckland Philarmonia Orchestra’s 2024 Premier Series, under its capable conductor Giordano Bellincampi.

I am not a musician; I can’t read a musical score or play a musical instrument, so am incapable of informed discrimination when it comes to performances, though I can point to more than half a century of avidly listening to concerts, radio and records as a dedicated consumer of music.

I found this an absorbing and enjoyable concert. All three works are emotionally intense, as was to be expected given the concert’s moniker, ‘Passion and Mystery’, though sufficiently various in musical idiom to avoid monotony. So far as I could tell the orchestra played splendidly throughout and was well directed by the resident conductor. The house was nearly full and the applause was deservedly prolonged.

Gemma Peacocke’s White Horses is a kind of orchestral tone poem, inspired by an extraordinary event in 1937 when a pioneer female New Zealand aviator, Waud Farmar, fell to her death in the ocean. In the words of the composer – a New Zealander working in the United States – ‘Farmar leapt without warning from a bi-plane above Cook Strait…The pilot saw her hit the sea and disappear.’ The pilot said: ‘The sea was pretty rough, with white horses everywhere’. These words provide the clue for Peacocke’s music treatment with lots of ominous rumblings of percussion, and intermittent sharp accents from strings and wind instruments. The sonic range is impressive, from a poignant violin solo to thunderous orchestral climaxes.

German cellist Julian Steckel was at his best in the intense opening Largo of Shostakovich’s sinewy concerto dating from 1966, the year of the composer’s 60^th birthday. Like its predecessor, the concerto was written for the great Mistislav Rostropovich. How fortunate the Russian composer was to have such sublime musicians as Rostropovich, David Oistrakh and Svatoslav Richter for whom to write his concerti! Unsurprisingly the score exploits to the full the virtuosic capacities of the instrument, demands which the soloist was clearly capable of meeting with ease and polish.

Tchaikovsky’s last symphony was first performed just nine days after his death in 1893, and it is hard to avoid inferring that he poured his heart and soul into it as a kind of final testament. The music is remarkably various, from the achingly lovely melody of the opening movement, through the delicacy and fire of the middle movements to the surging, sobbing melancholia of the final Adagio. The orchestra sounded magnificent throughout every nuance of sentiment wrung from the composer’s feelings. A cathartic experience altogether for the satisfied audience.