HOGWOOD CONDUCTS : ANCIENT MUSIC ACADEMY IN PASADENA

Christopher Hogwood gave the illusion of being on home territory for the occasion of his Tuesday evening concert at Ambassador Auditorium, Pasadena. He was, after all, appearing with his band of British period specialists, the Academy of Ancient Music. But there was that telltale word, conductor, after his name. In the old days the title was director.

The major difference between then and now is that today Hogwood rarely leads his ensemble from a position seated at the harpsichord. He has become a baton conductor, not only with his own antiquarian group but with a variety of standard-issue symphony orchestras. It is our loss, above all a loss of intimate, unhackneyed repertory. Appearances with larger (modern) ensembles foster the need to perform music of more general appeal, now mirrored as well in his performances with the touring academy.

Which is not to say that Tuesday’s program was without its rewards. They came chiefly in Schubert’s Fifth Symphony, which benefited greatly from being played by a small orchestra--20 strings and seven winds--of soft-grained period instruments.

The reading had vitality and color, balances that brought the all-important flute part (played with exquisite sweetness of tone by Lisa Beznosiuk) to the fore and conveyed the feeling of airborne serenity usually compromised in a big, modern-orchestra treatment.

Christophe Coin, a French cellist (and, not incidentally, viola da gamba virtuoso), brought his refined gifts to bear on the C-major Cello Concerto of Joseph Haydn.

Its opening movement, nobly paced by Hogwood, with Coin delineating the solo with admirable suavity and elan, proved most attractive. The expressive Adagio, however, was taken so slowly that its pulse came near to failing altogether, while in the fast-paced finale the vehement orchestra threatened to crush--and at times, it did--the fragile tones of the antique cello.

Finally, Mozart’s G-minor Symphony, K. 550 (a less frequently encountered work would have been ever so welcome) was impaired by a rigidly hacked-out slow movement and a harshly played, bristling minuet, taken at the currently fashionable--to these ears, grotesque--quickstep tempo.