Journey delivers polished NZSO
Classical Journey, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hamish McKeich Michael Fowler Centre, February 27
Reviewed by John Button
As this programme has travelled to eight centres already, it would come as no surprise that the playing was extremely polished.
And, for this orchestra, the works played offered little in the way of technical demands, so there was nothing to get too excited about.
The works chosen revealed the travelling regime, too, with only basic woodwind, horns and trumpets, tympani and strings. No trombones, and among the percussion just a sole triangle player. But a reasonably large string complement, and that revealed the only small anomaly in the works played.
With the programme based on Haydn as a loose theme, it was no surprise that we had a Haydn symphony – No 104 in D – but here we had the use of all the strings – something not that usual today.
In fact, the sound reminded me of that from the famous set of all the symphonies recorded in the 1960s by Antal Dorati – a set that pre-dated the authentic performance movement.
The concert opened with a spritely performance of Rossini’s overture The Italian Girl In Algiers and finished with Brahms’ Variations On A Theme By Haydn.
Well played, as was the Prokofiev Classical Symphony that preceded it in an evening of undemanding but thoroughly pleasant music-making.