Michael Houstoun brought NZ composer Lyell Cresswell's new piano concerto to life during the APO's Prokofiev 5 concert.
Michael Houstoun brought NZ composer Lyell Cresswell's new piano concerto to life during the APO's Prokofiev 5 concert.
A powerhouse Soviet symphony may have provided the title for Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Prokofiev 5 concert, but the evening set off to the strains of English elegy.
The APO string section immersed itself in the Victorian charm of Elgar's Serenade, elegantly paced and phrased by conductor Johannes Fritzsch. Later,Prokofiev's great lumbering Andante took its time to ignite, and one's heart reached out to the violins, in energetic pizzicato, doomed to be swamped in this thrilling sonic juggernaut.
The momentum of the symphony's scherzo, with its darting, iridescent lines, was unstoppable; after the slow movement's stretches of unbridled lushness, a spirited Allegro giocoso made a spectacular finale for the evening.
Six years ago, Lyell Cresswell's extremely compact first piano concerto dealt out visceral emotions, with an angry funeral march and double adagios; here, his Piano Concerto No. 2 explored style play across the centuries.
Cresswell's signature mood shifts were brilliantly achieved in the first movement, with Bach chorales pitted against temple block-laden toccatas, fired by Michael Houstoun's immaculate piano playing.
Elsewhere, temperatures were cooler and an early interlude evoked eerie musical boxes, mingling the sounds of piano, percussion and plucked strings.
Fritzsch and his musicians readily responded to the composer's inventive palette which included some sprightly interchanges between piccolo and piano, but the concerto's 35 minutes did, in its pared-down pages, bring moments of disconcerting stillness.
What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra Where: Auckland Town Hall Reviewer: William Dart
