There were bonuses all round on the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's latest visit.
Pianist Joseph Kalichstein, best known as a chamber player, brought a rare poetry to Chopin's F minor Concerto. There was forthright brilliance in the Allegro and limpid elegance in the Finale; in between, the Larghetto, was a
gorgeous nocturne, delivered in rapturous accord with a simpatico orchestra.
On Saturday, Kalichstein caressed our senses with pearly scale passages in Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto and showed once again an unerring sense of sonic dovetailing.
Even the tortuous harmonies of the Cadenza had an inescapable logic to them; the Adagio a narrative that not all performers manage.
There were three local works, including Kenneth Young's short but splendid brass fanfare written to farewell the retiring chairman of the board, Sir Selwyn Cushing.
Of the two official commissions, Dylan Lardelli's Tumbu gleamed through the ear-boggling virtuosity of clarinettist Patrick Barry. John Elmsly's Response saw flautist Bridget Douglas at her incandescent best, especially in intimate dialogue with concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppanen. Elsmly puts a priority on evanescent textures, faun-like woodwind shudders on woodwind and echoing horns, in a score of transient but memorable beauties.
The third component of the weekend was conductor Matthias Bamert.
On Friday, Bamert stamped his authority on Brahms's First Symphony. The opening bars were arresting and substantial, the Allegro following with purpose and chiselled clarity. All was balance and proportion in the Andante and, even at its most pliable, the Allegretto never became placid. The Finale leapt upon us without warning and when its grand chorale burst out, it did so with the inevitability of a 747 making a perfect landing.
On Saturday, there was more grandeur with Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra, despite a muffed trumpet entry. Many, too, would have been bewitched by the intricate filigree of the score's quieter pages.
Finally, offsetting the Teutonic gravitas of Strauss, Saturday ended with a demonic account of Ravel's La Valse, a ballet noir which Bamert and his ace musicians placed in an expressionist ghost-filled ballroom.
