William Dart: Chopin and Schumann APO review

Pianist Yeol Eum Son's playing was persuasive poetry. Photo / Marco Borggreve

OPINION

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra has infiltrated some adventurous fare into its 2022 Bayleys Great Classics, with music by Nielsen and Lilburn. However, Thursday night’s final concert saluted the Romantic triumvirate of Mendelssohn, Chopin and Schumann.

Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage has never convinced me. Yet the sheer intensity of Giordano Belllincampi’s becalmed Adagio augured well. The maestro was an inspired captain once the voyage got underway, even if all those scales and pummelled chords pale alongside the more inventive seascapes of this composer’s Hebrides Overture.

Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto has its awkward moments orchestrally, but a fine pianist can effortlessly illuminate Chopin’s delicate dreamworld. Yeol Eum Son had just the persuasive poetry at her command to do that, especially in the second movement’s rapturous nocturne — a pleasure enjoyed twice when a health incident in the hall occasioned a repeat performance.

The finale revealed a subtle tussle between elegant French waltz and earthy Polish mazurka, evoking, in 2022, the resonant image of an artist caught between two cultures.

The waltz, however, won at encore time, with a whimsically fashioned C sharp minor dance by Chopin.

Bellincampi unfolded Schumann’s D minor Symphony as might a storyteller. A suspenseful introduction swept us into an unbridled Vivace, its rushing strings and imposing brass interspersed with fleeting lyricism.

The following Romanze displayed Schumann’s individual palette with its subtle doubling of oboe and cellos, even if one felt it was the composer’s orchestration that prevented Andrew Beer’s solo from registering as it could have.

The swing of the Scherzo was compulsive, its floating trios a classic example of a bipolar composer seeking refuge in the gentler of his various personalities.

The symphony ended with another roaring Vivace, but not until a remarkable slow movement took us there, its bold contrasts of dynamics and colour suggesting that Schumann might already have had a glimpse of Valhalla, years before Wagner made it the home of his gods.

What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra

Where: Auckland Town Hall

When: Thursday