AT THE EMBASSY THEATRE : INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER ENSEMBLE MAKES ITS DEBUT

Touring orchestras arrive on foreign shores and earn one of two responses: either gratitude for their having made the trip and demonstrating strong abilities, or indifference at a display of unremarkable achievement.

The International Chamber Ensemble, a touring body of 18 players (plus piano soloist and conductor) from Italy, reached here Friday, and gave a pleasant but inauspicious debut at the Embassy Theatre. After another weekend stop in Mission Viejo, the group from Rome plays at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, tonight.

Francesco Carotenuto is artistic director of the ensemble, which seems to survive in the Eternal City without government support. His musicians show decent accomplishment and a nice sense of ensemble, but what purpose their touring serves is a mystery.

Rather stiffly and unvaryingly, Carotenuto led a program devoted to works by Vivaldi, Tartini, Paisiello and the 20th-Century composers Respighi and Ghedini. Most interesting was a pre-Mozartean Piano Concerto by Paisiello and Vivaldi’s Concerto in C for oboe and bassoon.

In the latter, Vivaldi solved balance problems through alternating musical statements by soloists and orchestra; the result is admirable, as well as attractive. A strong performance was dominated by oboist Paolo Verrecchia and bassoonist Pasquale Sabatelli.

With misguided heroism, and most aggressively, pianist Marisa Candeloro played a full-size grand piano in Paisiello’s small-scale concerto--rather like taking a battleship into a small lake to charm the ducks.