Culture

Kicking off the first of the 2017 Matinee series on the 29 April, Dunedin Symphony Orchestra’s Basically Baroque concert was certainly a hit. So often it takes an orchestra a while to settle into Bach, but the Concerto for Violin and Oboe was precise and enthralling right from the get-go. Featuring the virtuosity of New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Oboeist, Robert Orr, and Tasmanian based conductor and violinist, Daniel Kossov, the work was certainly impressive, particularly given Kossov was conducting the orchestra from the violin. Respighi’s The Birds was a fascinating piece of music in itself, as the twentieth century composer incorporates bird song into a seventeenth century inspired setting. The high flutterings, represented through the first violins, were particularly effective, and the skill of these players is to be commended. Orr returned to the stage for Bach’s Concerto for Oboe D’Amore, which was equally as convincing as the double concerto. The concert finished with Mozart’s Symphony No. 41, Jupiter, of which the fourth movement is perhaps one of the most extraordinary movements ever written. Despite being at the end of the concert, the work maintained its energy, and finished the concert at the same high standard that it started.