MUSIC REVIEW : ROMERO HITS RIGHT KEYS FOR OPENER

Monday night’s rainstorm proved no obstacle to the loyal followers of Gustavo Romero. Not a seat was empty in La Jolla’s Sherwood Hall when San Diego’s favorite piano prodigy appeared with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra in Mozart’s D Minor Piano Concerto, K. 466.

Maestro Donald Barra’s all-Mozart program opened his orchestra’s 1986-87 Sherwood Hall season, and while the orchestra’s board president George Goudy congratulated the organization on its solvency and third year of survival, Romero was clearly the evening’s focus of celebration. He presided over the stormy Mozart concerto with confidence that bordered on hauteur, but the bravado of his arm gestures and his boisterous pedal technique a la Andre Watts did not impinge on the classical proportions of his keyboard playing.

At the piano, the 21-year-old performer appeared diminutive and still quite boyish, but the psychological profile of his music-making was surprisingly mature and considered. Romero infused the concerto with infectious spontaneity, yet not a single note sounded unplanned or without purpose. He cultivated a wide range of articulations, and the bravura passage work was immaculate. If at times his detached delineation of primary themes sounded slightly affected, he nevertheless kept pristine Classical textures that banished even the slightest hint of Romantic exploitation.

He unleashed the vigor of the concerto’s finale, not with overbearing drive, but with subtle alternation of accents and attacks.

Barra’s accompaniment of the concerto succeeded by staying out of Romero’s way, although the young soloist’s assured precision contrasted starkly with the shaky phrasing the strings too frequently threw back at the piano. The orchestra’s best suit was the program-closing Symphony No. 34 in C Major, K. 338, and a seldom-played Divertimento for Strings in F Major, K. 138.

Nuance has never been Barra’s signature, but he disciplines his players well. His 30-piece group gave the outer movements of the three-movement symphony a robust, spirited reading. Particularly pleasing were the neatly terraced contrasts in the strings and fleet duos between the oboes.

On their own, Barra’s strings lacked the sweet, unforced sonority that a top-flight chamber ensemble can bestow on Mozart. Their hard-edged sound made the opening “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” K. 525, rather stiff and predictable. Barra’s rigid phrasing and stifling cut-offs deprived the piece of its wonted Classical lilt.