Philharmonia director promises rousing start to lively year

Eckehard Stier will take the orchestra through some favourite and not-so-favourite pieces. Photo / Adrian Malloch

Talking to Eckehard Stier on a patchy line from the other side of the globe, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's dynamic music director is impatient to return and launch the orchestra's season for this year next Thursday.

"I hear people complaining about the summer you're having, but we've had some bitter cold times in Germany," he says.

Deutschland may be icy, but there have been musical compensations for the conductor. Working with the Neue Lausitzer Philharmonie, in which he holds the post of chief conductor, he undertook a memorable five-concert tour with mezzo Patricia Basch and cellist Raphael Wallfisch last month. With music by Bloch and Lukas Foss rounded off with Leonard Bernstein's Jeremiah Symphony, "it was a brave programme", Stier says, obviously relieved it went down well with the German audiences.

Last Sunday he was standing in front of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in Eastbourne, conducting an all-Dvorak programme with cellist Colin Carr. "The LPO is a wonderful orchestra and I had a marvellous soloist. I'm a very happy boy."

Auckland is now very much on his mind, with the APO's Gala Opening next week. "Richard Strauss' Don Juan will get things off to a rousing start. This is perfect for showing the strengths of the APO in demanding late romantic repertoire."

Instead of Prokofiev's popular Third Piano Concerto, Stier has opted for the less well-known Second. "It still makes formidable demands on the pianist and we could not have had a better man for the job than Alexander Gavrylyuk."

Ukrainian Gavrylyuk, as well as winning a host of international competitions, has recorded the complete cycle of Prokofiev concertos with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Stier hails Ottorino Respighi, whose Fontane di Roma and Feste Romane complete Thursday's concert, as "one of the most important composers of the last century".

He stresses the spectacle of these scores, with 10 percussionists on stage, but it turns out that his fondness for them comes from boyhood memories. "One of my first concert-going memories was when I was 7 or 8 and heard Feste Romana; my father was playing the organ."

On Thursday week, the APO's second appearance of the season finds Stier fulfilling one of his dreams for the orchestra, conducting Scriabin's The Divine Poem which inevitably gives the concert its title, Divine Poetry.

This 1903 work is the ultimate in lushness and opulence, written by a composer who urges his musicians, at various times, to play audaciously, mysteriously and voluptuously.

Sustaining the Russian mood of the March concert is Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia, which has not been played in Auckland for many decades, and Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto.

Stier confesses that he adores this Shostakovich work but cannot resist describing it as grumpy.

He finds it impossible to pick a favourite from his great moments with the APO which include The Sacre Dance Project, the concert version of Strauss' Elektra and his mighty Mahler Ninth. His response is simple: "All I can say is 2012's going to be better."

Performance

What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra

Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Thursday at 8pm