William Dart: The Classicist by Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra - review

Thursday's longish offering, titled The Classicist, had Giordano Bellincampi and his musicians outlining a symphonic coming of age, writes William Dart. Photo / Adrian Malloch

KEY POINTS:

• Courageous musicians provide a much-needed soundtrack to our testing times.

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's 2020 Beethoven birthday celebrations were our first Covid concert casualty. Seven concerts over eight days would have featured all nine symphonies alongside programmes of Beethoven chamber works and local commissions.

Phoenix-like, the symphonies have returned, this time delivered over eight months and complemented by next week's performance of Fidelio.

Thursday's longish offering, titled The Classicist, had Giordano Bellincampi and his musicians outlining a symphonic coming of age; a journey from the first two symphonies to the musical and spiritual breakthrough of the mighty Eroica, which would transform the symphonic landscape forever.

Bellincampi was totally in tune with the almost impish humour of the First Symphony, as its bold opening chords launched 12 bars of immaculately contoured Adagio molto.

Beethoven's directives such as "molto", "brio" and "vivace" betray music fired with youthful energy and zeal, registering on Thursday in a minuet that strained to break into scherzo mode, and a finale of unbridled zest.

The Second Symphony reins in the testosterone somewhat, and Bellincampi had his players relax in its lush Adagio molto and a particularly shapely Larghetto before unleashing a sonic fireball in Beethoven's first symphonic scherzo.

The French composer Berlioz pointed out the irony of the Eroica Symphony opening with a waltz that was both serious and dramatic, a judgment that might well have inspired Bellincampi on Thursday.

Crisp tempi had much to do with keeping the heroic dance so vital. However, this maestro knows well how to generate propulsion through weaving textures, here in a monumental piece of writing that threatens, so deliciously, to go on forever. The same care illuminated the possessed counterpoint in Beethoven's blazing finale and evoked profound emotions in the earlier funeral march.

For me, it was the horn trio's exultant whoops in the scherzo that symbolised not only Beethoven's spirit of indomitability but the courage of our own musicians providing a much-needed soundtrack to our testing times.

What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Where: Auckland Town Hall
When: Thursday