Claudio Abbado Conducts Homeless Chamber Orchestra

The Chamber Orchestra of Europe, which returned to Royce Hall on Friday after a two-year absence, is an ensemble without a home.

Originally united in an international youth orchestra, its young players decided to form an independent organization in 1981. Since then, they have frequently regathered for prestigious tours and festival appearances.

Their regular conductor is a gentleman named James Judd. On gala occasions, however, they are led by their artistic adviser: none less than Claudio Abbado. The concert Friday night obviously was a gala occasion.

Abbado--head of the Vienna Opera, former chief guru at La Scala and possible heir apparent to the Chicago Symphony--is a conductor with few contemporary peers. He can command just about any podium he may want. It is significant, therefore, that he should make time in his schedule to escort these 50 extraordinarily talented nomads around America. The man’s priorities are in order.

It also may be significant that, for this exposure, he chose a distinctly self-effacing program. The focus obviously was supposed to be on the followers, not the leader, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe made the most of the opportunity.

The internal choirs were impeccably balanced. The instrumental fabric was rich yet transparent, the phrasing exceptionally subtle, the dynamic scale remarkably broad.

In matters of technique, the orchestra would seem to be a collection of virtuosos. Their most striking attribute, however, would seem to involve infectious high spirits. There certainly is nothing mechanical, nothing blase about their music making.

The program opened with an exceptionally joyous, propulsive yet graceful performance of Schubert’s Symphony No. 3. It ended, on an equally exalted plane, with a marvelously brash and witty, yet always elegant, performance of Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” suite.

In between, for a bow in the direction of modest exotica, the Europeans surveyed the “cosmic” American landscape of Charles Ives’ “Unanswered Question.” With the strings virtually inaudible offstage, this emerged as something of a piquant exercise for isolated winds and brass. Even given the acoustical miscalculation, however, one had to admire the inherent finesse of execution, not to mention the stylistic commitment.

The only disappointment of the evening involved the inevitable solo showpiece, in this case the Schumann Concerto. Cecile Licad, the young Philippine pianist, breezed through the central flourishes with forceful bravado that in no way inhibited accuracy. Abbado sustained momentum as well as coherence in the conversations between keyboard and orchestra, minimizing any disadvantage created by the paucity of strings.

Everything was clean and logical. The climaxes were potent. The overview was exuberant.

It wasn’t enough. One simply couldn’t find much warmth or poetry here. One searched in vain for the pathos of expansion, for the tension created by the lingering emotion, for the character that comes with the illumination of subtle detail. The romantic spirit somehow got sacrificed to youthful impetuosity.