Unusual concert ends on a high note

Pianomania, NZSO and Freddy Kempf, Wigram Airforce Museum, September 20.

I always welcome variations to standard orchestral programme structure, although a concert of well-known concerto movements is not something I’ve encountered before and, while the performances in this concert were consistently excellent, the ‘‘satisfaction’’ factor was variable.

The opening movements from Handel’s first G Minor Organ Concerto lost something in translation to the piano and the large string section of a modern symphony orchestra, and the following Andante from Mozart’s C Major Piano Concerto, No. 21, for once mercifully escaping its association with a certain Swedish film, becomes little more than a pretty tune when taken out of its full context, although the exquisitely refined playing from both soloist and orchestra was extremely impressive.

However, the inadequacy of the venue was also highlighted, even from my seat quite near the front, by the almost total inaudibility of upper strings in the quiet pizzicato passages.

The first half of the programme ended more satisfyingly with a complete performance of the most famous of Chopin’s four shorter concertante works, the Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise Brillante. Then, the sparkling final movement of Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto which opened the second half, while hardly more rewarding for the orchestra, brought a further rise in temperature from Freddy Kempf’s glittering fingerwork.

I feared that another isolated slow movement, this time from Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto, might suffer from its amputation as the Mozart had earlier, but here Kempf was in his element and delivered his finest musicianship of the evening, both as soloist and conductor, drawing a sumptuous sound from the orchestra.

However, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which ended the concert, brought a whole new level of communication.

Here, at last, the orchestra came into its own, from the most exhilarating playing of the clarinet’s opening glissando that I’ve ever heard, to beguilingly jazzinflected trumpet solos and idiomatic playing from the whole orchestra. Fine as Kempf’s playing was here, even he couldn’t match the flair and class of his orchestral colleagues.

I also enjoyed seeing the human face of the orchestra as various section principals introduced the works on the programme. I hope this is just the start of breaking down some of the more stuffy formalities of classical concerts; it made a significant contribution to an enjoyable, if unusual, evening.

– Tony Ryan