New Zealand Symphony at the Orchestra Auckland Town Hall

By WILLIAM DART

It was a relief to see that the NZSO had taken down the mammoth video screen that loomed over the orchestra during its Auckland concerts last year. Yes, Wellington, we Northerners can appreciate symphonic music without seeing close-ups of where the sound might be coming from.

The star of the orchestra's first visit was Russian violinist Vadim Repin, living up to, if not surpassing, all the superlatives that have been cast in his wake.

In the first concert, his Tchaikovsky Concerto delivered earthy passion, spot-on passagework and an elegant strain of lyricism.

In Repin's hands, the 1736 Guernarius never sang less than sweetly, even if the venerable violin did not appreciate the vagaries of the town hall's air conditioning.

On Friday, there was an encore with a difference. When rising temperatures disturbed Repin's tuning in the Finale, the violinist came back on stage and gave the movement a second go, only to be defeated yet again by Auckland's humidity.

Saturday night's Shostakovich was breathtaking. The first of the Russian composer's two violin concertos, written during the Stalinist repression of the 1940s, is a powerful critique of anti-Semitism rife in the Soviet Union.

Poignant laments are followed by caustic dances, and the intensity is white-hot. Repin effortlessly spun out the long arcs of melody, particularly in the opening Nocturne, and the vertiginous pace of the final Galop suggested that this wasn't quite the joyous folk party that Oistrakh once described it as. The audience clapped, stomped and cheered and were rewarded with an encore.

Both evenings opened with crowd-pleasers: Rossini's William Tell Overture and Dvorak's Carnaval.

The Rossini was launched wistfully by David Chickering and his cellos and, even at its most extrovert, despite all the Lone Ranger and Looney Tunes associations, is remarkably ingenious.

The Dvorak positively glowed with the orchestral resources at hand, and conductor James Judd carried it through to a gravity-defying conclusion.

William Walton's First Symphony, included on Friday as a tribute to the British composer's centenary, didn't really engage. Judd's flashy style when handling overtures didn't serve him well. There wasn't a sense of a whole created out of the many brilliant parts, although he did catch the tang of the Scherzo, and the third movement was a showcase for some inspired playing from flutist Bridget Douglas.

On the Saturday, Rachmaninov's Second Symphony was exhausting. Judd created the sort of climaxes that one could have drowned in, but the final impression was of a work that does not have enough to say for its hour-long running time.