MUSIC REVIEW : SCHUB SHINES WITH CHAMBER GROUP

At Monday night’s San Diego Chamber Orchestra concert, guest pianist Andre-Michel Schub brought enough electricity to the Sherwood Auditorium stage to compensate for maestro Donald Barra’s business-as-usual plodding.

Schub’s crisp, immaculately articulate approach to Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto bristled with energy and intense conviction. By the time the final movement rolled around, Schub was in the driver’s seat, dictating both tempo and interpretation; poor Barra was reduced to a meek figurehead, limply mirroring Schub’s intentions.

Perhaps the unabashed 33-year-old pianist felt a special identification with this work, which the composer finished at an identical age. If so, Schub could be forgiven both his indulgent mannerisms as he emoted over every delicate turn of the highly affected slow movement, and his exaggerated attack on the opening theme of the rondo.

If Schub’s technical prowess was not fully tested by this concerto, the showy first-movement cadenza gave more than a hint of his reserve power and keyboard dexterity. He dispensed cascades of trills by the handfuls and executed brilliant passage work with evident nonchalance. His Beethoven breathed Romantic fire, but he did not sacrifice the composer’s essentially Classical vocabulary.

In one of this season’s more thoughtfully balanced programs, Barra preceded the concerto with Rossini’s overture to “La Scala di Seta” and followed it with Prokofiev’s familiar, ingratiating “Classical” symphony.

The orchestra fared best in the Prokofiev, exhibiting a certain flair for its suave melodic inflections. The ensemble is not without a certain discipline, and flutist Tallon Perkes distinguished himself among the several woodwind soloists. Had Barra realized the composer’s underlying playful humor, mined from the same vein as his opera “Love for Three Oranges,” the symphony might have really come together.

In the opening overture, the orchestra’s timbre sounded edgy and unrefined. No doubt this group does not play together enough to produce an integrated sonic blend. Fortunately, in three of Brahms’ Hungarian dances that closed the concert, the strings found a warmer, richer sound.

With the demise of the San Diego Symphony and the tenuous existence of the city’s other chamber orchestras, almost any gathering of string players in the same room here has become a notable occasion. In this light, the San Diego Chamber Orchestra’s large, appreciative following is surely a salutary sign.

From the stage, board member Alan Gary announced the orchestra’s 1987-88 Sherwood Auditorium series. Next season, a fifth concert will be added to the series, which will feature pianists Gustavo Romero and the legendary Bella Davidovich, violinist Young Uck Kim, soprano Marvis Martin and San Diego State University clarinetist Marian Liebowitz.