CALIFORNIA CONCERT SERIES BEGINS : YOUTH SYMPHONY AT AMBASSADOR

The purpose of a training orchestra is to prepare players, through repertorial exposure and performing experience, for the demands of the profession. American Youth Symphony, an orchestra founded at UCLA by Mehli Mehta in 1964, has now been providing such preparation for 21 years. Its latest public performance, Monday night in Ambassador Auditorium, closing the orchestral concerts of the 1985 Gold Medal series, displayed the achievements of its training.

Most conspicuous in this display was the young orchestra’s neat and stylish playing of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, the main course in a full and ambitious program. Here, all choirs and instrumental soloists showed good preparation, as well as strong performance and ensemble skills. Mehli Mehta’s vigorous conducting outlined a view of the work defensibly centered in the core-movement, the Funeral March.

Before intermission, a decidely lower level of preparation was on exhibit, with both orchestra and conductor making up in enthusiasm what they lacked in finesse.

Schubert’s “Rosamunde” Overture emerged scrappy, scratchy and sometimes thin of sound. And the accompaniments to Saint-Saens’ A-minor Cello Concerto and Paganini’s “Moses” Fantasy, though approached gamely, came out ragged.

Timothy Landauer, the 23-year old protagonist in both works, brought handsome tone, abundant technique and an irrepressible musicality to his solo duties; he also displayed a penchant for rushing which diminished the total impact of his performance.