Those who went along to the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's In Nature's Realm concert, hoping for revelations of Bohemia's rural glories may well have been disappointed with the opening Dvorak overture that lent the concert its name. Dvorak's piping birds took a little while to get their song together,
although German conductor Eckehard Stier opened out magnificent vistas once the first tutti started.
The APO's Vero Aotea Series aims for a slightly different audience than its usual, by programming a more immediately appealing repertoire, aided by a guest who can wield words between the music.
On this occasion, we had the chance to put a face to Kate Mead, production manager for Radio New Zealand Concert, and she was a charmer.
Without recourse to paper, she fearlessly and fluently gave us the plot of Smetana's The Bartered Bride, the audience appreciating her droll description of Vasek as "not the marrying kind".
After Lin Jiang's sterling account of Richard Strauss's First Horn Concerto, Mead said the spirit of the composer had been invoked and was very happy.
And so he would have been with the young Australian soloist who dealt out cool flair from the very opening fanfare. The andante was perfectly gauged in its simplicity, with some telling orchestral contributions; the finale was a virtuoso hunting expedition.
Later, Mead would follow up the third of Smetana's Bartered Bride dances by saying how "flippin' amazing" it was that there were so many notes in the piece. It was in these pieces that conductor and orchestra showed the most concerted energy, although the big sound they made did not always escape from the Aotea stage.
The other highlight was Smetana's popular Die Moldau, one of music's most celebrated river journeys. It was a trip to remember, from its sparkling flute rivulets, oom-pah polkas and frolicking water-nymphs to a soaring violin theme that almost atoned for ragged work from the violins elsewhere. Dvorak's first Slavonic Dance was a popular encore.
