Firepower and finesse in dramatic performance
NZSO’s Mahler concert features exquisite contrasts and much energy
Gemma New regularly welcomes us to New Zealand Symphony Orchestra performances with lively words from the podium. Saturday night’s Mahler concert, she told us, was “about our world and new beginnings”.
Salina Fisher’s orchestrated version of her piano trio Kintsugi used the NZSO’s generous palette to often sumptuous effect.
While her chamber music original exquisitely reflected its inspiration — the Japanese art of gilding together broken pottery — on Saturday night this was opened out with a veritable conflagration of colours.
Strings, scored with Fisher’s customary finesse, lent a harmonic weight to proceedings that suggested we had moved with grace from the world of modest ceramics to that of discreetly monumental sculpture.
Adam Schoenberg’s Losing Earth ,a percussion concerto on the theme of climate change, was massively effective, with its spectacular array of instruments on which soloist Jacob Nissly vented his virtuosity.
New’s dramatic body movements complemented Nissly’s deft moves, as she marshalled the considerable drama, heightened by orchestral percussionists playing from the circle.
For all its timely messaging and sonic firepower, it was musical details that lingered such as Nissly’s gentle wash of vibraphone and Thai nipple gongs, the sheer groove and energy of his foot on a drum pedal, and the gentle optimism of the final spinning roto cymbals, echoed in the circle.
Early on, New announced that she viewed Mahler’s Fifth Symphony as a response to his meeting the love of his life — with the score’s death dances and funeral marches now conquered by the light and joy of marital bliss.
Perhaps this is why the opening march seemed to have an extra edge to it, or why Mahler’s sinuous slips from minor to major seemed particularly resonant?
The Adagio, the beating heart of the work, was appropriately heartrending, and the final movement a glorious celebration — not only of marital bliss, but equally of Mahler’s growing contrapuntal and orchestral confidence.