The Firebird makes up for uncertain start

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hamish McKeich with Diedre Irons (piano). Music by Juliet Palmer, Mozart and Stravinsky Michael Fowler Centre, April 8

After a convincing Carnival, a flawed Firebird. While the programme for the last New Zealand Symphony Orchestra concert made perfect sense, the logic of this lineup – pitting two bird-related works against a piece of pure Mozart – was less apparent.

Things got off to a poor start with Juliet Palmer’s 2003 piece Buzzard. Of course, it’s fine to riff off previous works, in this case, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and the eponymous Firebird, but you have to transcend that original material. Buzzard instead was neither especially melodic nor compellingly rhythmic, a slightly muddled halfway house.

After Palmer’s bracing postmodernism, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 23 in A Major was presumably intended as a palate cleanser but it was so different as to seem out of place. If a dose of classicism was required, surely one of the other Mozart concertos – the stirring, stormy Concerto No 20 in D Minor, for instance – would have fitted better.

As it was, soloist Diedre Irons’ performance was technically sound but the beautiful slow movement was played with too heavy a touch, and the delicate springiness required in the third movement was sadly lacking.

Thankfully the concert’s centrepiece, The Firebird ,wasa different matter. Conductor Hamish McKeich got the feel of this big, fantastical piece absolutely spot on. The fairytale bird, the noble prince, the princesses and their ogre captor were painted in luxuriant colours, all reds, golds and greens.

There were bold, sweeping moments, a scurrying, darting energy in the brass, and the most beautiful passages of silvery suspense from the strings.

Throughout The Firebird the woodwind and brass soloists were absolutely superb, their standard so consistent that it would be invidious to single any one of them out. McKeich’s dynamics and communication of emotion were both exquisite; the battles were suitably frantic, the lullabies suitably soothing.

The release of energy in the finale, with its huge, crunching chords, was satisfying in the extreme, a compelling end to the concert that substantially made up for its uncertain start.