orchestra – New Zealand Arts Review

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Other Worlds

Auckland Philharmonia

Auckland Town Hall

March 28

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

It’s easy to appreciate why Sibelius’s Symphony No 2 has been seen as a programmatic work conveying idea about patriotism and nationalism. At the time of writing the symphony the Russian occupiers were restricting the use of the Finnish language and attempting to change the nature of Finnish society.

So, with this symphony, while the Finnish language was being stifled Sibelius was allowing the Finnish voice to be heard through music which reflected on Finnish language, landscape and history.

He attempted to convey in music what the painting, ”The Attack” by the Finnish artist Edward Isto did visually. Painted at the same time it illustrated the feelings of many Finns. The work depicts a double headed eagle, representing the Russian state, attempting to snatch a book of laws from a while clad female.

The opening movement with its stirring blasts of the woodwinds and horns followed by the surging strings provided musical images of landscape which conveyed ideas of Finnish Nationalism. Later when the vigorously plucked cellos contrasted with the deep sounds of the bassoons there a sense of personal loneliness or struggle.

The notion of the individual alone in the landscape and awe at their surroundings which is present throughout the work was also apparent in the opening work on the programme, Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides Overture” which also linked landscape, history and myth.

Later the militaristic sounds of a rampant orchestra ended with a triumphant anthem all this sounding like a great storm and its aftermath.

The work was by turns nostalgic, revolutionary and celebratory with repeated themes evoking a call to arms and a new dawn.

The newest work on the programme saw a trio of South Korean artists on stage with violinist Inmo Yang playing Unsuk Chin’s 2001 work “Violin Concerto No 1“ and the orchestra conducted by Shuiyeon Sung.

Unsuk Chin’s Violin Concerto is one of her most famous works and has won a number of awards and is fine example of cross-cultural music where the experimental and the traditional are fused.

Inmo Yang backed by a percussion rich orchestra – marimba, gongs, harps, bells and xylophone gave an extraordinary performance.

From the first bars of the first movement with his rapid bowing, he attempted to dominate the orchestra in what seemed at times like a competition.

His almost dementated, playing and the abstract sequences he produced contrasted with the more controlled playing of the orchestra with many of the sequences sounding as though Yang and the orchestra were responding to different musical scores.

His high-pitched sounds worked well with the percussion instruments producing otherworldly feelings and soft disturbing moments. There were also random moments of intimacy as well as magical sounds full of exuberant colour as he joined with and riffed off the various percussion instruments.

In the final movement his dexterous playing set the stage for a battle between violin and orchestra where their sounds would combine and then separate with a massive sonic, Doppler Effect.

Chin’s violin concerto requires a player who has focus, exceptional technical skills and understanding of the work. Inmo Yang possessed all those qualities.

Future APO concerts

April 11th

Viennese Feast

Conductor Christoph Altstaedt
Violin Amalia Hall

Brahms Variations on a Theme by Haydn
Haydn Violin Concerto No.1
Mahler (arr. Britten) What the Wild Flowers Tell Me
Schubert Symphony No.6 ‘Little C major’

May 2

Bach & Bruckner

Conductor Johannes Fritzsch
Piano David Fray

J.S. Bach Keyboard Concerto No.5, BWV 1056
J.S. Bach Keyboard Concerto No.4, BWV 1055
Bruckner Symphony No.9

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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.