Expectations confounded - Classical Journey

Friday, 1 March 2019, 11:15 am
Article: Max Rashbrooke

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Wednesday, February 27

Reviewer: Max Rashbrooke

I’ll admit I wasn’t enormously excited by this programme, a set of mainstream pieces with nothing to shock audiences in the provinces where it has been touring for the last couple of weeks. (I use the term provinces in a positive sense, of course, as with our splendid new $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund and so on.)

But I’m pleased to say that my expectations were overturned by the concert, expertly conducted by Hamish McKeich (even if the pieces’ supposed connection to Haydn seemed tenuous at times). Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers: Overture was very good, a crisp and controlled performance with a splendid Rossini Rocket at the end, although I did think the woodwinds were not quite up to their usual standard.

Haydn’s own Symphony Number 104, the ‘London’ Symphony, was another treat, right from its dreaming, misty opening through to a finale that was, in the words of one of the standard Christmas carols, joyful and triumphant. McKeich found plenty of dynamic range while retaining the cosmopolitan charm that to me always feels central to Haydn’s work: this was a very gentle evocation of London, one in which the worst thing that might happen to you was being splashed by a passing hansom cab. The second movement had some especially lovely moments from flautist Bridget Douglas, although I felt the movement could have had a fraction more intensity overall.

The last work, Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Haydn, displayed an assured touch throughout. Especially enjoyable was the golden sound of the horn section in the third variation. In the fourth, a superb balance was maintained with one theme emerging from underneath another seamlessly, while the eighth variation was so delicate one might almost have called it evanescent, something disappearing into the air.

The highlight, however, was undoubtedly Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony. Right from the outset it was shimmering with energy; the first movement had some extraordinary, exhilarating surges of energy, expertly balanced against jokey moments in the strings. In the second movement the shading of tones and dynamics – that combination that conjures up so many intermediate moods and emotions – was exceptional, while the latter two movements were full of atmosphere and originality.

All up it felt like McKeich’s most assured conducting with the NZSO, and a remarkable demonstration of what can be done without either the big classical blockbusters or edge-of-your-seat modernism. Bravo!

ends

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Max Rashbrooke

Journalist

Max Rashbrooke is a journalist and author working in Wellington, New Zealand, where he writes about politics, finance and social issues.

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