Classical review: Concert blasts off in military style

APO French horn player Simon Williams.

Haydn's Military Symphony provided a breezy launch for Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Thursday concert. Conductor Paul Goodwin was obviously inspired by the composer's endlessly inventive high spirits, especially when an innocuously pretty slow movement was rocked by blasts of percussion.

A finely nuanced opening Adagio, with the APO violins back on form, gave little hint of passions soon to be unleashed. After the lilting capriciousness of the Minuet's Trio, the Finale was a breathless charge to the finishing post.

Schumann's Konzertstuck for four horns was a perfect showcase for the musical camaraderie of the orchestra's horn section. Nicola Baker, Emma Richards, Carl Wells and Simon Williams were a whooping delight. There were a few shaky moments, one of the accepted perils of this instrument; however, there were also visceral thrills as fanfares flowed from player to player, while chains of resonant harmonies reminded us of Schumann's admiration for Wagner's Tannhauser.

A certain sense of formal ceremony does relent in the Konzertstuck's second section. Here, a more romantic mood prevailed, set by brooding lower strings, while a rapturous soloists' duet showed just how much emotion Schumann can draw from unpromising contrapuntal procedures.

And what more praise could one give the high-kicking Finale than imagining its composer might have strayed over the Bohemian border to the land of the polka?

After interval, Poulenc's 1948 Sinfonietta offered a generous slice of Gallic charm school. The Frenchman does sanction a few gruff outbursts in his opening Allegro but, in general, tunefulness rules, with Goodwin's generous baton work drawing out lush, swooning sequences.

The precision of the second movement was commendable; Poulenc may be nodding to Tchaikovsky here, but he also catches a strain of very English light music for this BBC commission.

We were spellbound by the easy-flowing elegance of the third movement and, perhaps spurred on by the "tres vite et tres gai" (very fast and very gay) directive for Poulenc's Finale, Goodwin gave us an encore - Haydn's earlier Finale, sans repeats and with a new gusto in its bars.