The habit of reviewers reporting, in mock wonderment, that the concert by the current incarnation of the National Youth Orchestra has offered the most exciting and committed symphony concert of the year, or decade, has become traditional, almost a ritual. Such claims are made in all good faith and in the hope of being seen as friends of the young and apostles of hope that the mature population will follow the lead of youth. To do otherwise is very difficult, especially when the facts obviously favour the tradition. Especially this time; for not only was this perhaps the most uniformly talented...  Read More »

A lovely concert - framed by two adorable works for string orchestra, with centres spliced by plenty of tangy wind-band textures. One of those tangy centres was a work I had not heard for some years, Britten's Soirées Musicales (orchestrations of Rossini's music), and never as a work for winds only, as here (the arrangement made by the composer). Another work, the Tchaikovsky Serenade, I had never actually heard live in concert (hard to believe, really, especially considering how well I know it!). So, there was plenty of interest there for me, and, I would have thought, for others, though,...  Read More »

The Red Violin was a 1997 film by François Giraud for which John Corigliano wrote the score; it told the adventures of a haunted violin. From it the composer arranged a piece for violin and orchestra – a Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra and it proved a fine showcase for Martin Riseley. It may have been his first appearance with an orchestra in a public venue since he returned to New Zealand to take up his position as Head of Strings at the New Zealand School of Music. It has been a few years since the university orchestra performed down-town, at...  Read More »

The idea of learning one's history through music seems an attractive one; and the Wellington Orchestra's 2010 programme has taken pains to forge links in time between the present year and various composers and their works connected with one, two, and three hundred years ago. The latest in this year's concert series focused upon the year 1810, though only two of the four works on the programme seemed to have an association with that year. Of the others, the Stravinsky ballet Jeu de Cartes was part of a parallel series featuring the composer's ballet works, and Rossini's perennially delicious Overture...  Read More »

This was a blockbuster of a concert, regarding both its overall length and the epic nature of the music throughout its second half. The Mahler Fifth Symphony isn't the longest of the canon, but it has an epic grandeur that invites big, measured utterances, and the performance by the NZSO and its conductor Pietari Inkinen squared up to the work's demands magnificently. Earlier we got Ross Harris's Three Pieces for Orchestra, evocative vignettes of different times, places and personalities, followed by some lively, elegant Haydn from one of the stars of the world of 'cello-playing, Li-Wei Qin. Having a piece of...  Read More »