Everything came together for Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's French Impressions concert: a programme balancing Gallic favourites with a symphonic curiosity, a top-notch French conductor and a soloist whose CV includes more than a decade's music-making in Paris.

Pierre-Andre Valade brought out both the ironies and the subtle rhythmic undercurrents of Ravel's score (...)

Roussel's 1930 Third Symphony, delivered with astonishing panache by Valade, might look beyond France in its musical references but, at the same time, its orchestral brilliance and clarity stamp it as French.

Valade and his players delighted in Roussel's touches of Mahlerian rustic as well as a rumbustious Finale (...)

 

New Zealand Herald
Auckland, New Zealand
Mar. 31^st, 2012