Irish charisma to the fore with NZSO

Barry Douglas exudes charisma, even over a crackling telephone line from Wellington. And when the Irish pianist takes the Town Hall stage this weekend playing Beethoven and Tchaikovsky with the NZSO, it will spill into the stalls.

I have learned that he listens to Bruckner on his iPod while working out at the gym. I suggest that he must be into long and rather spacious workouts. With a laugh, he admits the truth - "you can only really do it to the scherzos".

A few weeks ago he was immersed in Manchester's Piano 2006 Festival as director.

"I wanted to make something of a jamboree for piano, all in the space of five or six days," he says. "The centrepiece was the complete Mozart piano concertos played by various soloists and orchestras."

In the Manchester line-up was Camerata Ireland, Douglas' band. A lot of his energy goes into this orchestra the Washington Post praised for its ability to "jolt the most concert-weary warhorses back to life".

Douglas is so proud of those words they are on his website. "In fact I've been conducting since my teens. I've just turned up the volume these days."

The Cameratas' tour of the United States ranged from Florida to Alaska, where they landed on a glacier and felt they were "almost at the end of the world". The next night they played a Mozart symphony and a Beethoven concerto in Anchorage's concert hall.

The Beethoven Piano Concertos are on Douglas' mind at present. He has recorded the Second and Fourth with his orchestra, the first instalment of the complete cycle. "It's a daunting task, as the great and the good have done this several times."

Next for the studio is the Fifth, the mighty Emperor, but first he is doing it with the NZSO in Rotorua tomorrow night and Auckland on Saturday.

"It is a supremely individual piece and sometimes under-rated," Douglas says. "On the surface it can sometimes seem a bit obvious, especially in the first movement, but it's a matter of colour, texture and the balancing of the instruments.

"The second movement is one of the natural, almost Schubertian movements Beethoven ever wrote. "It just seems that the music has floated from his pen."

Douglas confesses his approach to the work has changed "It is an ongoing endeavour to get to the heart of it, find out what makes it special, then project it to the audience."

And, with an Irish lilt in his voice, he adds, "If you look for asymmetry rather than symmetry then you catch the magic".

I nudge him about Friday night's perennial warhorse, Tchaikovsky's First Concerto.

Douglas will have none of it. "It's just a fabulous piece," he retorts.

"I adore it and I don't get to play it every season. It gives us pianists the chance to be close to the Tchaikovsky symphonic repertoire. It is also very operatic, very much Eugene Onegin, especially in the second movement."

In an NZSO press release, Douglas names Sanderling and Maazel as two of his favourite conductors, but he also adds fellow visitor, Yan Pascal Tortelier, to the shortlist.

"He is a total delight, a wonderful musician and I really like the way he works and treats the scores. We have been through a lot of repertoire when he was with the Ulster Orchestra."

But, once again rehearsals are looming. Our conversation ends, and, as a parting revelation, he tells me that his present gym listening is Tosca.

I'm just hoping he stays off that pommel horse until he has finished his New Zealand schedule.

* Where and when: Rotorua, Civic Theatre, tomorrow 8pm; Auckland Town Hall, Friday 6.30pm, Saturday 8pm