NZSO starts the year with two impressive concerts

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under the direction of new Music Director Edo de Waart opens a new chapter in its history.

The seventy- four-year-old conductor has taken the already superb orchestra to new heights, providing audiences with new insights into music.

De Waart has the orchestra not just playing the music but rather an exacting accuracy he has managed to extract an emotional dimension that has rarely been expressed.

In conducting Mahler's Symphony No 3 and Beethoven's Symphony No3 (The Eroica) he seemed to take on the persona of those composers, providing a narrative, exploring the textures of the music and extracting the moods.

This was particularly noticeable in the orchestra’s playing of Mahler’s monumental work. Here de Waart carefully structured the playing of the work, giving it a remarkable freshness.

He didn’t merely express the dramatic and lively elements of the music. His conducting was controlled and measured, attempting to understand Mahler’s orchestration and textures.

In the Beethoven-like opening, each drumbeat was noticeable and clear; each note seemed to be filled with meaning and emotion.

In this symphony Mahler wrote inventive and profound music, creating a work that expressed ideas of rebirth and awaking. His ability to render complex emotions and distinctive landscapes is remarkable and de Waart translated them with supreme ability.

The choice of soloist for the performance was inspired, with the Swedish mezzo-soprano Charlotte Hellekant singing Nietzsche’s “Midnight Song”. She was impressive. Standing impassively like a Greek caryatid, her emotionally wracked voice expressed the psychological and dreamlike qualities required, providing a haunting sound, full of significance.

This same attention to detail, choice of programme and soloists appears to be a feature of the NZSO programme for the rest of the year.

Later this month the orchestra under Hamish McKeich will present an Anzac concert featuring Madeleine Pierard as soloist in Ross Harris’s Symphony No 2. Pierard recently sang in Harris’s chamber opera Brass Poppies (NBR March 18). Also on the programme will be works by Frederick Septimus Kelly and George Butterworth, both of whom died in the battle of the Somme in World War I.

In early May the Aotearoa Plus concert features the world premieres of Christopher Blake’s “Symphony – Voices” and Bramwell Tovey’s “Time Tracks.”

In late May, the touring concert to Auckland, Wellington Christchurch and Dunedin features Stephen Hough playing the Brahms  Piano Concerto, No 2 and Gareth Farr’s “From the depths sound the great sea gongs” and Shostakovich’s Symphony No 1.

In July the world-famous conductor Sir Andrew Davis will be conducting Messiaen’s “Eclairs sur l’au-dela”, a work for 128 players, which will see the NZSO performing with the National Youth Orchestra. Davis  is currently music director and principal conductor of Lyric Opera of Chicago, chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and conductor laureate of both the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

In August Edo de Waart will be conducting Mahler’s Symphony No 4 and Strauss’ Four last songs. Both works will feature the soprano Christiane Libor.

Tune into NBR Radio’s Sunday Business with Andrew Patterson on Sunday morning, for analysis and feature-length interviews.