APO and NZSO perform monumental works

Auckland Philharmonia
Auckland Town Hall
June 16th

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Auckland Town Hall
June 18th

Last week both the APO and the NZSO put on monumental concerts which needed very large orchestras. The APO performed Gustav Holst's The Planets while the NZSO presented Mahler’s Symphony No 6.

The APO’s concert also featured Michael Collins as conductor and soloist in Mozart’s glorious Clarinet Concerto.

Collins played on a basset clarinet which is closer to the style of instrument that Mozart would have composed for.

The deeper richer sounds he was able to produce gave the work a much more sombre and dark feel.

The orchestra’s playing of Holst’s The Planets was a magnificent affair. The expanded orchestra included a lot more brass, a couple of harps, a piano, the newly refurbished organ and Terence Maskell’s outstanding Graduate Choir.
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Adding dramatically to the concert were a series of NASA images of the various planets. The move could have been a distraction from the music but actually added to the overall experience. This was a musical, astrological, allegorical as well as scientific journey, the images as mesmerizing as the music.

The only thing the concert could have explored which would have made it even more relevant would have been connections with Matariuki which explores many of the notions about astrology which inspired Holst’s work.

The NZSO under conductor Pietari Inkinen also had an enhanced orchestra including the huge wooden mallet which is used in the final movement as the hammer of Fate.

The symphony is one of the great hymns to humanity in which Mahler addresses his personal grief, fears and delights. There is a questioning of and a reflection on life from a humanist perspective. This is a life in which joy is tinged with sadness. It does not have a resurrection or an ecstatic end, there is only the inevitability of life and death in which the individual is hero.

This balance between the joyful and the tragic is conveyed through the music with numerous themes which convey images of idyllic pastoral scenes, the lives of happy children as well as the scourge of war and the presence of death.

The balance is achieved between vast waves of sound and quiet, delicate interludes with Inkinen tightly controlling the orchestra, at times urging them on while at other times restraining them.

The work is impressive not just for its dramatic sounds but also for the experimental way in which Mahler introduces various musical themes. His use of the cowbells in this performance was translated by the conductor into having a musician walk through the auditorium clanging the bells, providing a mix of folk music and grand classical.

Forthcoming Concerts

Auckland Philharmonia

Tchaikovsky & Sibelius
APN News & Media Premier series
June 30th 8.00pm
Auckland town hall

Sergio Tiempo Soloist
Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto, No.1, op.23, B flat minor
Sibelius, Symphony No.2, op.43, D major

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Pinchas Steinberg conductor
Simon Trpceski piano
Mussorgsky arr. Rimsky Korsakov Night on Bald Mountain
Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4

Wellington Michael Fowler Centre / Fri 8 July / 6.30 pm

Napier Municipal Theatre / Tue 12 July / 7.30 pm

Hamilton Founders Theatre / Thu 14 July / 7.30 pm

Auckland Town Hall / Fri 15 July / 7 pm