Strings sing before dazzling finale
After the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s recent and mighty Mahler 5, Saturday night’s Testimony concert was a comparatively modest affair.
Nevertheless, it offered an exquisite selection of string orchestra repertoire, with three engrossing 20th-century works punctuated by two intensely romantic interludes, all delivered under the vigorous leadership of Vesa-Matti Leppanen.
Douglas Lilburn’s Diversions lived up to its name, as well as the praise of English conductor Boyd Neel, whose orchestra played the piece on its 1947 New Zealand tour. Indeed, for Neel, it was the only score of a suitably high standard among hundreds offered.
On Saturday night, the bracing confidence of the young Lilburn proved irresistible, as the musicians gave us exploding trills, harmonic processions of unswerving nobility, and even a playful nod to Rossini before its joyous finale.
Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara described his Pelimannit as a free fantasia on folk tunes. And Saturday night’s performance was imbued with a suitable sense of liberation, from the massive power of its opening chords to the immaculate weave of its central movements.
The evening closed with Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony,
Rudolf Barshai’s dazzling arrangement of the composer’s Eighth String Quartet.
Inspired by the horrors of a devastated post-war Dresden, this 1960 opus springs to new life with its orchestral expansion. The slow tread of its opening Largo was sustained with suitable eeriness and the slashing chords of its Allegro molto, soon moving to a wild and frenzied dance, both thrilled and chilled.
Of the two shorter pieces, Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile featuring the sweet-toned cello of Ken Ichinose, was particularly poignant.
For those who think of Anton Bruckner as a symphonic titan, his F major String Quintet is a welcome corrective, and not just, in the words of one non-believer, “an erratic spark struck off by the collision between chamber music and the Wagnerian colossus”.
On Saturday night, its Adagio, at 15 minutes, may have been of symphonic proportions, but, immaculately paced and phrased, it was the beating heart of the evening.