By WILLIAM DART
Marco Zuccarini negotiates his way through the orchestral ranks looking like everyone's favourite absent-minded uncle. Once podium is achieved, and baton is in hand, the Italian is transformed into one of the most dynamic and arresting conductors on the Auckland Philharmonia's books.
All this comes out in the opening
bars of Beethoven's Fidelio Overture on Thursday night. A short orchestral storm is followed by a pregnant pause and then the horns make their entry, as from afar. Zuccarini and the players go on to give a vital, take-no-prisoners performance, riding over the occasional rough patch without compromising the excitement of it all.
The New Zealand Trio, making their orchestral debut with Beethoven's Triple Concerto, seems not quite at ease with some of the composer's demands.
Flying arpeggios on violin and cello are not always secure in their upper reaches, and both string players have occasional lapses in intonation.
Yet Justine Cormack, Sarah Watkins and Ashley Brown do have the measure of Beethoven's poetry, particularly when Brown makes a telling rubato entrance in the middle section of the first movement; they are tuned into the humour, too, tripleting with brio when the mood turns to buffa in the Finale.
Although hampered by a rhythmically disconcerting start, the short Largo sees the three soloists at their most persuasive, with some luxuriantly lyrical playing.
Beethoven's Seventh Symphony sets off with shapely phrasing and a careful balancing of forces, which is almost stymied by over-enthusiastic timpani. Zuccarini's ability to differentiate textures and his tenacity in pursuing a thematic argument are enviable.
Occasionally one senses that conductor and players enjoy dealing with Beethoven at his most intransigent, revelling in dissonances that will be further intensified in the Trio of the third movement.
The Allegretto, over-familiar to some ears perhaps, sounds anew through the narrative that Zuccarini gives it, and the textural finessing on the final page allows every note to make its eloquent point.
Timpani are once more far too bullying in a scherzo that, otherwise, is a good-spirited romp and the Finale lacks nothing in drive, although its momentum would not have been diminished if the first violin line had been more keenly articulated.
