The Auckland Philharmonia close a haunting programme of Liszt, Berlioz, and Webster. Photo / Sav Schulman
The Auckland Philharmonia close a haunting programme of Liszt, Berlioz, and Webster. Photo / Sav Schulman
THE FACTS
Auckland Philharmonia’s Fantastique! concert featured Louise Webster’s exploration of witchcraft’s historical cruelty.
Sylvia Jiang dazzled with Liszt’s Totentanz, handling its demanding variations effortlessly.
Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, led by Pierre Bleuse, captivated with its modernity and orchestral brilliance.
Halloween came early with the Auckland Philharmonia’s Fantastique! concert offering devilry, death and the obligatory witches.
Louise Webster’s Proof Against Burning launched the evening with more serious contemplations on the cruelty meted out centuries ago to those suspected of witchcraft.
In four crisply scored movements, the Auckland composerexplored what conductor Pierre Bleuse had described as the terrible things humans use religion as an excuse to do.
Rich in its detailing, Webster’s relentlessly propulsive first movement featured yearning lines that would be further developed, floating over the second movement’s trail of wandering thirds.
Pierre Bleuse drives Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique with fiery intensity. Photo / Sav Schulman
A considerable challenge was rendered with chamber music finesse, inspired no doubt by a conductor currently at the helm of Paris’s prestigious Ensemble Intercontemporain.
Liszt’s Totentanz is an unabashed circus, with flashy variations on the Dies Irae chant that might have been written for fearless pianist Sylvia Jiang.
Sylvia Jiang stuns in Liszt's Totentanz, each cadenza blazing with precision. Photo / Sav Schulman
None of Liszt’s finger-numbing demands fazed her, from the sheen of sweeping glissandi to the totemic weight of some massive chordal passages; we were totally transported, cadenza after cadenza.
Jiang’s encore was prompted by thoughts of home for this American-based Kiwi – a pellucid account of Nostalgia by Chinese-New Zealand composer Gao Ping.
Pierre Bleuse and Sylvia Jiang unite for a thrilling journey through Berlioz' musical inferno. Photo / Sav Schulman
Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique is an extraordinary phenomenon, startling the world three years after Beethoven’s death with its unique, very French take on the Teutonic symphonic tradition.
Bleuse, in interview, had sparked a real anticipation by talking of it being so modern and still a surprise. And it was, brought to life by a maestro not afraid to direct his musicians with a mere tremble of the fingers.
Berlioz’s admittedly rambling first movement was fired with a sense of real inevitability, the Auckland Philharmonia strings at their most sumptuous. The waltz was remarkably light on its feet, at times positively coquettish; the sparse third movement gave us the unforgettable vision of Nicholas Tisherman’s melancholic cor anglais piping below a quartet of timpanists.
Exhilaration almost overflowed in the final two movements, packed with the composer’s orchestral tricks and treats as he sends us all to Hell with a blast of C major.
