Classical review: APO, Auckland Town Hall

New Radio New Zealand Sunday morning host Wallace Chapman used his affable TV and radio hosting style to compere the countdown. Photo / Greg Bowker

The partnership between Radio New Zealand Concert and Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra is long-standing and symbiotic.

Friday's Settling the Score Live drew an enthusiastic APO audience to hear what radio listeners had taken to the top of this year's poll.

Wallace Chapman used his affable TV and radio hosting style to compere the countdown. There was some spin, blather and a few mispronunciations but, early on, his tale of life among the second violins of Nelson Symphony Orchestra must have won over some cynics.

A conservative bill-of-fare ran from Beethoven to early Stravinsky; no Gillian Whitehead this year, alas.

While Chapman's connecting commentary was not always memorable, conductor Tecwyn Evans kept the music flowing; the Allegretto from Beethoven's Seventh Symphony wafted up to the balcony followed by an elegant Swan Lake Waltz.

The first half featured the inevitable Lark Ascending of Vaughan Williams, with concertmaster Andrew Beer revisiting his July triumph.

Eliah Sakakushev-von Bismarck similarly lifted hearts with a lingering first movement from Elgar's Cello Concerto.

Two levels down, in the front of the stalls, the second half seemed like another concert. Around me, Chapman's patter drew unforced laughter and the thundering Mars from Holst's The Planets could have warranted a storm warning.

The exemplary phrasing and violin tone in Elgar's Nimrod were a salutary reminder that popularity need not exclude musical quality.

Chapman could have mentioned the APO's terrific Tristan and Isolde when the opera's Prelude came up, mesmerising at close quarters.

Principal horn Nicola Baker not only led her colleagues into Stravinsky's Firebird finale, but took the whole horn section front of stage to celebrate the country's Number One.

For Schumann's curious Konzertstuck to carry off top honours seemed as much the result of a well-organised social media campaign as of any national affection for it.

Nevertheless, it provided an exuberant signing-off.

At the end, when soloist Emma Richards took out her camera for some quick selfies, one had the feeling that, all along, we had been privileged guests at one of the Christmas season's first parties.

What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Where: Auckland Town Hall
When: Friday