Auckland Chamber Orchestra’s ‘The Ox on the Roof’: bold and eclectic programming
A concert review by Five Lines guest writer Raf Hosking
Peter Scholes conducting the Auckland Chamber Orchestra at Kahui St David’s
Image credit: Paul Baragwanath
Peter Scholes’ Auckland Chamber Orchestra is a phenomenon. I arrived at Kahui St David’s a little wide-eyed and full of curiosity, having not heard a single piece on the programme before. What I had heard were the names—Holmes, Rimmer, Milhaud, and Martinů all had works being performed, as did, intriguingly, Hori Shaw.
It was enough that they had brought back a piece by Leonie Holmes from the 80s, but Hori Shaw? I was hooked. And so, as Scholes took the podium to introduce the first piece, I sat back, vaguely bemused, wondering what I was in for.
The programme opened with Martinů’s La Revue de Cuisine. It’s the kind of piece that’s just fun to perform, and as the players navigated the vibrant opening this was the overwhelming feeling in the hall. The twisting rhythms and playful counterpoint of its first movement briefly gave way to a sombre expressiveness in the second, with a tonal shift deftly handled by the players and an appropriate level of drama.
It is in the third movement that La Revue seems at its weakest. Here, Martinů has—quite lazily, I would argue—sourced not just his rhythms, but many of his melodies and much of his harmonic materials from the Charleston, and the result is frankly underwhelming. Nevertheless, the performers negotiated these sections adeptly, and the piece ended with enthusiastic applause from the good-sized audience.
Musicians from Auckland Chamber Orchestra performing Martinů’s La Revue de Cuisine
“…just fun to perform!”
Image credit: Paul Baragwanath
Next on the programme was the piece I was most excited to hear, Leonie Holmes’s Prelude for Strings. Commissioned in 1987 during her period as Composer-in-Residence at the Nelson School for Music by the Nelson Chamber Orchestra, the work begins with a simple yet brooding quartal motif in the cellos. It’s this motif, gradually unfurling as it is taken up by the rest of the orchestra, that underpins this elegant piece. As it progresses, Prelude nods its head to Toru Takemitsu, utilising octatonic harmonies and delicate high harmonics worthy of the great Japanese composer himself.
There was a sense that this piece is particularly beloved by Scholes. Each motif is allowed space to breathe, each phrase shaped with attentiveness, and its abstract textures are carefully balanced against with more lyrical melodies. As the piece approached its end, the celli returned to offer a final dark retrograde of the opening quartal theme, and the space held open by the music was gently closed.
Upon arriving to St David’s, audience members discovered that not only was Hori Shaw’s Ready to Ride on the programme, but Kruzi’s Oro Taketake had been added. These were each arranged by Claire Scholes and Peter Scholes, respectively, as part of an initiative undertaken by APRA to create arrangements of compositions by Māori and Pasifika artists for chamber orchestra.
Despite working from source material without much harmonic or melodic development, each of these orchestrations showcased the versatility and prowess of their arrangers. What were once minor details in the form of ad libs, bird song recordings, or guitar ornaments in the originals, now surface to form a complex polyphonic tapestry passionately rendered by the performers. Shaw and Kruzi would no doubt have been gratified by these meticulously crafted renditions of their works.
New Zealand composer John Rimmer
His string quartet From Wreckage to Healing, performed by the Jade Quartet, was a highlight of the Auckland Chamber Orchestra’s programme.
Image credit: Promethean Editions
The programme’s highlight came from Jade String Quartet, performing John Rimmer’s From Wreckage to Healing. Commissioned by the quartet in 2024, Rimmer’s sixth string quartet seeks to represent both the devastation and the effusion of love and support that followed Cyclone Gabrielle. This is an ambitious task to undertake as a composer, and one I was initially sceptical of
Several minutes into the piece, however, my fears were dispelled as its turbulent opening gave way to a fragile calmness. Rimmer really makes his audience work for these fleeting moments of eerie beauty, often disrupting them with violent outbursts, and the precarity of these passages was heightened by the impressive delicacy achieved by the quartet.
The concert ended with rapturous applause for Milhaud’s Le Bœuf sur le toit (The Ox on the Roof), the humorous favourite performed as an accompaniment to a Charlie Chaplin film projected overhead. This was irresistible good fun, and there were chuckles around the hall as we witnessed the protagonist’s high-speed exploits and misfortunes.
As we left St David’s, I marvelled at the ground covered in this eclectic and bold programme. And while part of me wished we had been left with Rimmer’s unnerving stillness, it was hard not to succumb to the cheer of the audience following the jovial finale.
Auckland Chamber Orchestra: “The Ox on the Roof”. Music by Holmes, Rimmer, Milhaud, Hori Shaw, Kruzi and Martinů. Peter Scholes (conductor) with the Jade Quartet. Auckland September 12, 2026.