MUSIC REVIEWS : YOUTH ORCHESTRA AT ROYCE HALL

As part of a season featuring “Great Russian Concertos,” the American Youth Symphony spent the bulk of Sunday evening playing backup band for two of them.

One may question the value to a training orchestra of a program so dominated by solo vehicles, but for the audience gathered in Royce Hall, UCLA, it provided plenty of opportunities for cheering.

Selma Gokcen impressed with an intelligent, suave reading of Shostakovich’s E-flat Cello Concerto. Displaying a warm, even tone and an assured technique, the young cellist wisely avoided overplaying or overemoting. Working with a score--for a change--Mehli Mehta led his reduced forces in a restrained, neatly balanced accompaniment--for a change.

The performance deserved more vociferous applause. But, of course, Shostakovich is not Rachmaninoff.

Cheers followed the latter’s thoroughbred warhorse, the Second Piano Concerto. One suspects the ovation was for Rachmaninoff, since it was almost impossible to hear soloist Paulina Drake. With players filling the large stage, Mehta drew out the maximum volume from his charges. Meanwhile, the soloist did her best to be heard. Except for those moments when the ensemble stopped playing--and Drake was able to demonstrate her ample technique and limpid tone--the pianist might just as well have been playing “Maple Leaf Rag.”

The evening began with a roof-rattling “Academic Festival” Overture. The more subtle charms and tongue-in-cheekiness of Brahms’ score escaped Mehta, however.