William Dart review: Auckland Philharmonia’s Other Worlds is an unflinching contemporary concerto

Auckland Philharmonia’s Other Worlds concert might have seemed eccentric at first glance: an unflinching contemporary concerto flanked by decidedly mainstream overture and symphony.

Yet, with principal guest conductor Shiyeon Sung at the helm, this evening
of magnificent music making delighted a large and enthusiastic audience last Thursday. Indeed, if an applause meter had been handing out prizes, the contemporary might well have come away winner.

Every breeze, gust, ripple and surge registered in Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture. While climaxes were blasts of exaltation, more-delicate moments were infinitely finessed; especially when clarinets gave out their sighing second theme.

After the interval, Sibelius’ Second Symphony took on a new freshness. The first movement was stirringly monumental and, in the second, one marvelled at Sung so skilfully sustaining momentum through its many shifts and changes.

The night’s highlight was indubitably the New Zealand premiere of the 2001 Violin Concerto by Korean composer Unsuk Chin, a work feted by one critic at the time as the first masterpiece of the new century.

Chin is a supreme colourist. We were drawn into her beguiling world with soloist Inmo Yang flexing his virtuoso muscles over murmuring marimbas. Rhythmic pulsation proved an inescapable heartbeat throughout and, after a breathtaking cadenza, a furious orchestral eruption brought a rush of adrenalin.

Yang, who won both the Paganini and Sibelius competitions, flew high and cool in the airy textures of the second movement and duelled with fiery exchanges in the third. Around him, the musicians responded impressively to Chin’s many demands, particularly the busy percussion section, with all manner of exotic instruments.

Unsuk Chin is a composer who writes with care and consideration for her audience; this music is well paced in terms of incident and lucid in its structure. Here and there it is evident she was a student of the Hungarian Ligeti but, in the solo part particularly, the influence of Bach is inescapable. This made Yang’s encore of a shapely, unaffected Sarabande by that composer not only dramatic but apt, after the concerto’s hushed final pages.