After the perfectly poised gemutlichkeit of Bruch's Adagio, a fire-filled finale made a convincing case for it being so much more than poor-man's Brahms.
Kraggerud's encores were generous and personal; an original Postlude, cushioned in comfortable sequences, and his own tribute to the legendary Ole Bull, coming across as romanticised Nordic Bach.
Anticipation had been running high for Mahler's First Symphony, the first major symphonic venture for this orchestra and its newly-appointed music director.
Bellincampi's hands-on, no-baton approach made it seem as if he was moulding the musical clay in Mahler's opening movement, from mysterious strings and far-off trumpet fanfares to a climactic end, with whooping horns and an exciting stutter-phrase close.
The joyous brawl of Mahler's second movement was brought into convincing cohesion and, after that, the magical shift from funereal Frere Jacques to sinuous klezmer took the breath away, as it should.
The great finale might have contained a whole Mahlerian world of its own, its transcendent, finely sustained slow section signed off with a heart-stopping cathartic roar.
The great conductor Bruno Walter once likened this work to Goethe's tragic Werther; if so, then Mahler clearly intended his young hero to survive and spectacularly so.
Review
What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Where: Auckland Town Hall
When: Thursday
