The last concert of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's APN News & Media series was a predictably superlative affair.
Conductor Lionel Bringuier certainly impressed the week before; this time around, he had a predominantly French programme to engage with.
Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune opened as if suspendedin midair in a state of expectant languor. As the pages went by, the orchestra took on a life of its own, breathing, sighing and occasionally breaking out in the lushest ecstasy.
If one's only quibble was the errant entry of an antique cymbal, then this was indeed the APO at its most responsive.
Szymanowski's Symphonie Concertante is a curious work, echoing Chopin, Debussy and even Bartok, yet the Polish composer's individuality asserts itself through these disparate influences.
In performance, the challenge is to make its multifarious gestures hold together and create a dialogue between its many parts. Bringuier achieved this, thanks to Polish pianist Ewa Kupiec, who was familiar with every phrase, and an orchestra unfazed by the score's volatile rhythms and textures.
Kupiec effortlessly wove dreamlike arpeggios around orchestral soloists in the central Andante and eagerly joined in the boisterous dance of the Finale, right through to its last splash of A major.
If the orchestra had been a model of discipline in Szymanowski, then nothing was held back for Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. The 22-year-old Bringuier seemed to find new adventures by the page, in keeping with the spirit of Berlioz's shatteringly original work. Even with mutes, the first appearance of the strings caught the extreme passions of the composer's soul-sick hero.
After a waltz which did not swoop and sway as much as some might have had it, the orchestra headed fearlessly for the Gothic extravaganza of the final two movements. The Finale, a veritable textbook in outsider orchestration and compositional techniques, chilled and thrilled in equal parts.
