New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at Auckland Town Hall - William Dart review

Andrea Lam, soloist, and Andre de Ridder, conductor, with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at the Auckland Town Hall.

OPINION

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra was rewarded with a large and responsive audience for the first two of its 2024 Immerse concerts.

However, this time around, conductor Andre de Ridder did not bring the contemporary treats of last year, which featured works by John Luther Adams, Wynton Marsalis and Bryce Dessner.

Friday’s Mozart The Great programme played safe with the composer’s “Elvira Madigan” piano concerto and penultimate Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, even if Viennese elegance was preceded by the tasty entree of Ligeti’s Concerto Romanesc.

Written in an idiom that shouldn’t unsettle those who can cope with Bartok, this lively score was crowned by the fiery folk fiddling of guest concertmaster Monique Lapins in its runaway finale.

The Mozart symphony ended with a more decorous 18th-century storm, balancing the sleek propulsion of its opening movement. De Ridder’s individuality came through - the andante was unexpectedly forceful; the minuet’s trio may have surprised some with the intimacy of solo strings.

In the Mozart concerto, the assured artistry of soloist Andrea Lam contrasted sparkling allegro passagework with graceful nuance with regard to the andante’s familiar melody.

On Saturday, Schumann’s Symphony No. 4, in its sturdier and more imposing revision, saw de Ridder positively relishing the monumental, although a wafting lento assai was suitably ravishing, thanks to Robert Orr’s shapely oboe and Lapins’ lilting descants. Such was the burst of grandeur opening the finale that one almost overlooked Schumann’s curious obsession with dotted rhythms.

Lam penetrated the very soul of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, luxuriating in the composer’s sly Gallic jazz as the orchestra alternatively jived and sighed around her.

On Friday her encore had been a burnished Brahms intermezzo; on Saturday a delicately drawn account of Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 in C# Minor.

Ravel’s Bolero had given the second concert its name, and was the finale to end all finales. This bold, confrontational work fully deserved the intense enjoyment one sensed emanating from the hall.