Christian Knapp is a major find for the Auckland Philharmonia. On Thursday the American conductor's bracing take on Sibelius's En Saga sets the adrenalin pumping for an evening to remember.
Knapp knows just when to surrender to the work's Nordic flow, and how to draw out its more mystical moments
- an unexpected presage of Stravinsky's Firebird or some bars in which a quartet of solo violins joins a viola in Sibelian rapture.
The credit is not all Knapp's; the orchestra is spot-on and the welcome re-arrangement of the violin ranks makes for a fuller more unified sound.
The Sibelius leads to Christopher Blake's new Concerto Aoraki; an appropriate introduction for a local composer whose music has often echoed the spirit of the Finnish master.
We come close to thematic nods this time, as well as a characteristic textural quality, strained through Lilburn, especially when woodwind sing against a backdrop of strings.
Blake could not have wished for a finer soloist than Natalia Lomeiko, who projects passion and lyricism - two qualities the concerto has in abundance with ease.
She enters with a line that does for fourths what Berg's Violin Concerto does for triads, and we can follow its sequences being worked out throughout the movement.
Loveliest of all are the bell-laden second movement, in which violin soars over organ-like wind sonorities and the finely drawn melodic interludes in the Finale.
After interval, Knapp shows us how to hear a warhorse with new ears; his Tchaikovsky Fifth Symphony is a startler.
Choice of tempo plays its part; when combined with fury, in the Finale, Tchaikovsky comes across as the older brother of the revolutionary Prokofiev. A few blurred details here and there prove a small price to pay for the ensuing excitement.
In the opening movement, lush dynamics and bold shifts of style disconcert but inveigle us and the Andante cantabile finds Knapp taking intricate care with the gradation of the string tone behind the famous horn melody.
I am sure I will not be alone in wondering what this provocative conductor will make of Beethoven's Seventh in the AP's next concert.
