Total enchantment may have been slightly compromised for some the Winter Magic concert, when Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra announced that the indisposed Armenian cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan would not be playing Shostakovich's Second Concerto.
However, taking its place, as an Austrian outsider in an all-Russian programme, was Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, a work that deals out its own brand of beguilement.
Giordano Bellincampi is just the musical sorcerer to ensnare us here, juggling Schubert's passion and lyricism on a knife edge, moulding shapely melodies with expressive hands, yet not holding back when stern Beethovenian blasts cut across them.
Sofia Gubaidulina's Fairytale Poem had opened the concert, the composer finding all the dreams, hopes and fears of her life within the Czech fairy story that inspired the piece.
Written in 1971, when Gubaidulina was an alternative and harassed voice in the Soviet Union, its fantastical world of shimmering colours burst upon us, with shivery string clusters, a bopping jazzy fugue and a spectacularly wild climax.