RAVENSCROFT: ‘I DON’T HAVE A COMPOSER’S PRIDE’

Ronald Ravenscroft modestly insists on giving credit where credit is due. His Violin Concerto, which will receive its premiere when the Pacific Symphony visits Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Thursday, was completed with no small amount of help from a number of expert eyes and ears.

“My work is always a collaboration,” he said. “I want input from the performer, for one. After all, a human soul will be playing this music.” Thus, Ravenscroft, 33, worked closely with soloist Alexander Horvath, the orchestra’s associate principal second violinist.

“It would be foolish not to take advantage of someone who has spent his life playing the instrument. I don’t have a composer’s pride--I don’t know it all.”

Ravenscroft, who studied with Halsey Stevens and William Kraft at USC, also sought the counsel of Herbert Spencer, orchestrator for Boston Pops music director John Williams. “He was very enthusiastic about the concerto,” the composer said. “But he had some comments and suggestions on the orchestration.”

Not to suggest that the soft-spoken Laguna Beach musician is unsure about his craft. “Music is a communicative art,” he explained. “If I’m not communicating, I’ve failed. I’m not doing this for myself: I want to move people, to inspire them.”

According to the composer--who will conduct the premiere of his concerto--the three-movement, 35-minute piece is neither extremely modern nor extremely traditional: “I don’t consider myself an avant-gardist, but I am living in the present age and I must express my time in my music. Actually, in hearing the work in rehearsal, I was surprised at how contemporary it sounds.”

As to his influences, Ravenscroft once again revealed a high degree of humility: “I have spent my life studying the masterworks--that has to reflect in my music. I would be foolish not to draw on the great musical literature.” Strauss, Mahler and Stravinsky have made particular impressions, he added.

And what of the life of this concerto beyond Thursday? Surely violinists must hunger for new works to add to the repertory. Quite the opposite, Ravenscroft noted sadly. “Most big-name soloists have learned their 10 concertos and don’t feel they have to expand beyond that. The problem is that a lot of very bad music has been written, and those soloists just don’t have the time to wade through everything that’s submitted to them.”

Ravenscroft was unconcerned: “I wrote this piece because it’s something I wanted to express. I’m still learning. And if I’m learning, I’m happy. There is no point of arrival for me.”

MULTIMEDIA BRITTEN: After a one-year delay, the William Hall Chorale will offer a multimedia presentation of Britten’s “War Requiem” next Sunday at Royce Hall, UCLA. According to Hall, this will not be a glitzy, stagy production. It can’t be--the publishers won’t allow it.

“Before we had to cancel it last year (due to the financial burden of the project), word got to the publishers that we were going to perform the work with some staging,” Hall said. “They informed me that Britten’s will stipulated that this could not be done. But he (Britten) was concerned that someone might do it as an opera, and I convinced the publishers that such was not the case.

“We’ll use some set pieces--a burned stained-glass window, some crosses, a fox hole--and the lighting will be dramatic. (Ron Kauffman is designer.) I want the staging to enhance the work, not get in the way.”

Hall’s concept has been brewing for 20 years. The conductor noted that when he mentioned his plan to the late tenor Peter Pears, a longtime friend of the composer, Pears responded, “Oh, Benjie would love that.”

In addition to the theatrical trappings (which include dressing tenor Jonathan Mack and baritone Rodney Gilfry in World War I uniforms), Hall has also contributed a brief prelude “to set the concept of the work.” Scored for brass and percussion, the introduction, “Reflections of War,” will be accompanied by a series of slides, designed by Bob Bassett, ranging from Lincoln’s funeral up to World War I. The presence of Walt Whitman--in slides and in verse--will figure in the prelude, Hall said. Whitman was “the champion of poems of war, and Wilfred Owen (whose verse is used prominently in the Britten) had studied those poems and was heavily influenced by them.”

Might all this dilute the power of one of this century’s most profound musical works? “I’m not sure it needs more than the music,” Hall admitted.

MUSICAL SALE OF THE CENTURY: History will be made on Friday, Sotheby’s officials expect, when a 500-page volume of symphonies written in Mozart’s hand goes on the block at the famed London auction house. The manuscript is expected to fetch around $1.5 million, placing it far beyond the current record holder, an incomplete score for “Sacre du printemps” that sold for a mere $500,000 in 1982.

Sotheby music curator Stephen Roe carried the bound collection containing the complete autograph scores to Symphonies Nos. 22-30 to the United States recently, where the manuscripts were on display at the firm’s New York office. “This is really a monument of our civilization,” Roe said of the immaculately preserved 7x9 1/2-inch volume. He noted that in all likelihood, Mozart’s father, Leopold, bound the scores together, since they are preceded by a thematic index written in Leopold’s hand.

Previous owners, he said, included Leopold von Sonnleithner, a friend of Beethoven’s, and a publisher named Cranz.

And who will acquire the symphonies? Will they be forever locked away in some airtight safe? Roe said that interest among prospective buyers has run unusually high, since this is the last known example of autograph scores of Mozart symphonies expected to go on public sale. “This collection is of such enormous significance that it might be bought by someone who wouldn’t normally collect manuscripts.”

PEOPLE: Ernest Fleischmann was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree by the Cleveland Institute on Saturday. The executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who received the degree along with Cleveland Orchestra program annotator Klaus Roy and institute faculty member Marie Martin, also delivered the commencement address at the Ohio music school.

William Schuman has been commissioned to write an original work for the 1989 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Tex. Others who have contributed compositions include Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber and Leonard Bernstein.