Yang flies in concert

Rachmaninov with Joyce Yang, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Edo de Waart Michael Fowler Centre, October 27.

There was a largish audience on hand for this concert of Rachmaninov, and they were well pleased with what they heard.

Edo de Waart clearly rates, and enjoys, the orchestral music of the tall, gaunt Russian and his understanding informed all three works in the concert.

The Third Piano Concerto has the reputation of being the hardest concerto of them all to play – mostly because of the huge spans in his chords that reflected the size of Rachmaninov’s hands (he was one of music’s great pianists) – but Joyce Yang had no problems as she negotiated all three movements with power and skill.

What made this performance special was the close relationship between pianist and conductor. With both orchestra and pianist on the same page – and this rarely is the case – the work revealed strengths in its structure that few would have thought it possessed.

The same understanding informed the performance of Rachamninov’s final orchestral work, the Symphonic Dances of 1941. By this time, the composer’s language had acquired some small harmonic twists and an orchestration that was even more masterly than previously. Surely this is his finest orchestral work and maestro de Waart revealed all its glories in drawing forth playing of real splendour. Never have I heard the final pages with such a spine-chilling Dies Irae.

The concert opened with an orchestral version of his famous song – the wordless Vocalise – very nicely done. – John Button