MUSIC REVIEW : Rostropovich and National Symphony

Mstislav Rostropovich is a paradox.

The Soviet musician has long been recognized as one of the finest cellists of the century--an artist whose passion invariably is informed by imagination, tempered by sensitivity and bolstered by technical finesse.

For most paragons that would be enough. But Rostropovich also fancies himself a conductor. There’s the rub.

He has been preoccupied with this wishful occupation since 1961. He made his debut on an American podium in 1975. Washington embraced him as music director of the National Symphony two years later.

When he first swapped his bow for a baton, the responses were generally guarded. Great conductors, some people rationalized, are made, not born.

After all these years, however, the skeptics remain unpersuaded. To them, Rostropovich is still a great cellist who dabbles in conducting and doesn’t always dabble wisely or well.

Friday night, after a four-year absence, he brought the National Symphony back to UCLA.

On the last visit, Rostropovich and his orchestra had been forced to dribble music in the wide, open, inhospitable spaces of Pauley Pavilion. One wanted to blame any musical disappointments on the inadequacy of the locale. This time, the venue, Royce Hall, was utterly appropriate. The performances, however, proved just as perplexing.

The orchestra sounded like a solid, professional, second-rate instrument. Rostropovich, whose conducting technique adheres to rudimentary signals, played it clumsily.

He seems to favor a rather dark and lean tone. In the bright Royce acoustic, it relentlessly exposed any imbalances among the choirs or lapses in pitch.

The spirit on Friday was generally warm and willing. The execution was a bit untidy. Most surprising, given the protagonist’s vaunted expressive flair, the interpretations tended toward the bland.

Rostropovich opened the program with a rather plodding account of Haydn’s Symphony No. 22 (“The Philosopher”). Although a nearly inaudible harpsichord continuo was employed on behalf of Baroque authenticity--its function seemed strictly chordal--the stylistic accents proved stubbornly Romantic.

At the end of the program, Rostropovich’s ungainly urgings produced a brisk, square and jerky performance of the Brahms Second Symphony. One wished the maestro had opted instead for something Russian.

The novelty of the evening came in the middle, with the local premiere of a Concerto for Two Cellos by David Ott, composer-in-residence at De Pauw University. Written in 1987 and introduced in Washington by the same forces last February, it turned out to be a rather ambitious exercise in neo-romantic pap and an exhaustive workout for a well-matched pair of solo virtuosos.

Exploring a vast network of movie-music cliches, the virtuosos in question, Steven Honigberg and David Teie, indulged in a lot of imitative noodling and doodling, a lot of slush-pump brooding and, in the fiery finale, a lot of agitated scrambling. Temporarily promoted from the ranks of the cello section, they gobbled up the bravura opportunities and demonstrated high degrees of mutually dependent ensemble skill.

Still, this was much ado about little.