MUSIC REVIEW : ‘Symphony of the Holocaust’ Has Premiere

A survivor of the Nazi death camps, Shony Alex Braun has more than the ordinary person’s right to try composing a “Symphony of the Holocaust.” But all the commitment and integrity he brought to this monumental subject could not obscure the fact that he was defeated by it as surely as it would defeat the greatest composers.

Given its first performance by the Garden Grove Symphony under the direction of Edward Peterson at the Don Wash Auditorium on Saturday, Braun’s Symphony rarely rose above competent Hollywood film music. The work, in five continuous movements, lasts approximately 17 minutes and depicts various aspects of camp life and the liberation.

Wearing a body mike, Braun skillfully played the Gypsy-flavored violin solos. Actor Thomas F. Bradac soberly prefaced the work with passages written for the film “Shoah.” Grim slides of camp inmates--supplied by the Simon Weisenthal Center--were projected on a screen above the orchestra.

Braun reportedly picked the slides himself. But insufficient time or effort went into coordinating music and visuals, with some horrifying results: bright orchestral pizzicati juxtaposed with a pile of emaciated corpses; dance rhythms during a shot of the ovens.

Peterson and the orchestra offered honest, direct and solid efforts. Generally, however, Peterson proved overcautious and at times a plodding conductor. His account of Shimon Cohen’s “Romancero,” for instance, seemed interminable. (The Israeli composer was in the audience.) Peterson opened the program with a sluggish reading of Smetana’s “The Moldau.” The orchestra sounded best in Graziani’s dance-band arrangement of “Cycle Songs by Naomi Shemer.”