Classical review: APO, Auckland Town Hall

Auckland Philharmonia conductor Eckehard Stier. Photo / Adrian Malloch NZH

The final concert of Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's New Zealand Herald Premier series was a night to remember. A well-filled Town Hall must have anticipated as much when the urbane Geraint Martin, chairman of the APO Board, came on stage to salute conductor Eckehard Stier before the German's last appearance as music director.

Actions followed words with the presentation of a 2015 All Black shirt ("Alles Schwarz," as Martin wittily put it), embossed with the signatures of the APO players.

The ensuing Beethoven B flat Piano Concerto could have been an anti-climax. Far from the composer's finest work, it was more convincing than usual tonight, thanks to the orchestral polish and the well-turned, no-nonsense pianism of Daniel de Borah.

In among the irritatingly facile passagework of an opening Allegro, one was pleasantly surprised by the frisson of excursions into unexpected keys, and totally won over by de Borah's storm of a cadenza. Written by Beethoven well after the original concerto, these few minutes transported us into a new age, as if by time machine.

De Borah found a meeting place between Haydn and Chopin in the florid writing of the second movement, while conductor and orchestra, finely nuanced in this Adagio, propelled us with gusto through a bouncing Finale.

For the second time in a week, a visiting pianist gave us a Brahms Intermezzo as encore. On Saturday, Garrick Ohlsson chose from the composer's Opus 116; tonight de Borah entranced us with the lingering beauties of Opus 119 No 1.

After interval, it was off to the mountains for Richard Strauss' 1915 Alpine Symphony.

Twelve years ago, the APO performed it in tandem with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to a disappointingly small Auckland Festival audience. Tonight, tackled alone, with admirable confidence and stamina, it was another step in the orchestra's very audible coming-of-age.

With surtitles charting the journey, Stier revelled in the almost cinematic splendours, from waterfalls and ghostly spirits to a hall-shattering storm; revealing Strauss to be a romantic at heart, well into the 20th century, despite the expressionist edge of his earlier Salome and Elektra.

Classical review
What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Where: Auckland Town Hall
When: Thursday.