Italian salutes in triplicate are bellissimo

Sizzling encore of Devil’s Laugh Caprice from principal viola

Auckland Philharmonia’s In the Italian Style offered three musical salutes to that country and its culture from an Austrian, a German and a Frenchman.

Maestro Giordano Bellincampi had Schubert’s second Overture in the Italian Style sparkling like the Rossini it was imitating, even if its Adagio displayed a rather Teutonic seriousness.

Mendelssohn would have been delighted with his Italian Symphony on Thursday night, as the zest and earthiness that Bellincampi brought to it in 2018 had not dampened a whit. Its substantial Allegro vivace was livened and lightened by impeccable dynamic play, the woodwind’s second subject theme almost swinging with joy.

The Andante con moto moved surely and gracefully, and the generous sweep of scherzo led to an explosive finale, a wild dancing saltarello — minor in key but major in fire power.

After interval, Harold in Italy, Berlioz’ eccentric viola concerto, was a chance to enjoy the unfaltering musicianship of its soloist, the AP’s own Robert Ashworth.

Harold is romanticism at its most radical and rebellious, music of bold harmonic shifts and extraordinary colourings. Australian composer and violist Brett Dean, who played it with this orchestra 15 years ago, described it to me as a score of “door-opening and ear-opening audacity”.

Bellincampi vanquished all challenges, from the opening intertwine of stealthy Bachian counterpoint to the weltering fury of its wild orgy of the brigands. Yet when delicacy was demanded, double pianissimi and transparently fragile textures took the breath away.

Although Ashworth’s considerable virtuosity was sometimes subsumed by Berlioz’s orchestral roars, he characterised the composer’s melancholic hero beautifully; opening with soulful nobility alongside Ingrid Bauer’s harp, adding eerie flourishings to the pilgrims’ prayers and his own pensive serenadings in the following movement.

Ashworth spoke to us of his joy in playing a work he had loved since childhood. Acknowledging Paganini’s role in commissioning and then foolishly rejecting the piece, his encore was a sizzling account of the Italian’s Devil’s Laugh Caprice.

On Thursday night, it was definitely Berlioz who had the last chuckle.

Although Ashworth’s considerable virtuosity was sometimes subsumed by Berlioz’s orchestral roars, he characterised the composer’s melancholic hero beautifully . . .