Auckland Philharmonia’s Rachmaninov 3 and Zemlinsky Mermaid dazzle audience - William Dart

Conductor Giordano Bellincampi leads Auckland Philharmonia through lush late-romantic soundscapes, with star soloist Alexander Gavrylyuk at the piano. Photo / Sav Schulman

Auckland Philharmonia music director Giordano Bellincampi had promised us earlier in the week that the orchestra’s New Zealand Herald Premier series would “start with a blast”. And there was certainly no shortage of seismic thrills in a pairing of two lush late romantic classics.

The title of the concert, Gavrylyuk & Rach 3, saluted the star soloist alongside the popular concerto programmed, and Alexander Gavrylyuk brilliantly brought out all the soul and fire of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

The work’s hushed opening theme, exquisitely nuanced by the pianist and woven through telling orchestral detail, was the dramatic calm before a storm of virtuosic outbursts.

It was also an indication that this performance would reveal the AP musicians and their guest coming together in a rare emotional comradeship, under a remarkable maestro.

In 45 minutes of sometimes wild contrasts, Rachmaninov’s central Intermezzo movement opened with a passionate orchestral prelude that offered no hint of the dashing triple time scamper lying ahead.

After an exhilarating and often flamboyant finale, in which nothing was held back, the sonorous chords of Gavrylyuk’s encore, Rachmaninov’s third Moment Musical, created a perhaps welcome mood of intense introspection.

Eckehard Stier and this orchestra introduced Auckland audiences to Alexander Zemlinsky’s The Mermaid back in 2016, in what struck me at the time as a magic carpet of cataclysmic climaxes and enchanted fairy-tale vistas.

Ten years on, Bellincampi see this score as expressing a deep and philosophical longing for an immortal soul and a spiritual life. This is reflected in the finesse of tonight’s rendition, from the opening page’s dark forebodings and orchestral flutterings that lead to Andrew Beer’s languorous Tristanesque theme.

Over 45 minutes, we hear many bracing evocations of the sea before the mermaid’s journey ends in whispering ripples. In between Straussian climaxes, lusty march-like passages hint at a style that, three decades later, would serve Erich Wolfgang Korngold well in Hollywood.

This Thursday finds concertmaster Beer joining principal cellist Ashley Brown in Auckland Philharmonia’s Best of Brahms concert, their Double Concerto flanked by the composer’s Academic Festival Overture and Symphony No.4.