MUSIC REVIEW : Tuckwell’s Name Fills Hall, but Performance Lacks Spirit

The reputation of virtuoso horn player Barry Tuckwell helped fill Sherwood Auditorium Monday night. The visiting Australian musician graced the San Diego Chamber Orchestra’s monthly concert with half of the Mozart horn concerto repertory, the D Major Concerto, K. 412, and the E-flat Major, K. 447.

If Tuckwell had played all of the extant horn concertos by the age of 17, as his biography claims, it is not surprising that the 58-year-old performer appeared rather bored and disengaged. In purity of tone, stylish phrasing, and unfailing accuracy of attack, Tuckwell lived up to his reputation as the reigning horn virtuoso. But, except for the jaunty finale of the E-flat Concerto, which he took at a rollicking tempo that nearly left the orchestra in the dust, Tuckwell sounded cool and distant.

In its accompanying role, maestro Donald Barra’s orchestra surpassed its usual scrappy standards, displaying a sweet string timbre and a laudably cohesive ensemble. Perhaps the infusion of fresh talent in the violins and violas was responsible for this sonic rejuvenation. Violinist Frank Almond III filled in for concertmaster Igor Gruppman, and fully half of the strings were substitutes.

Complementing this heavy dose of Mozart--the concert also opened with a dutiful reading of Mozart’s early Symphony No. 26--Barra included Maurice Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin” and Bohuslav Martinu’s “Sinfonietta La Jolla.” The Martinu is not only a spirited, albeit modest in scope, neoclassical essay, but it has an important local connection, as its title indicates.

Back in 1949, when San Diego was one-third its current size and could not boast either its own opera or full-season symphony orchestra, the intrepid folk of the Musical Arts Society of La Jolla commissioned Martinu to write a work for them. They also commissioned another leading composer of that era, Norman Dello Joio, to supply them with fresh material. Would that any of San Diego’s present musical organizations, especially those with seven-figure budgets, had the vision to set aside a few dollars for commissioning projects.

Barra and his players approached Martinu’s three-movement opus enthusiastically, confirming its innate optimism and light-hearted lyricism. Although it’s not a piano concerto, the sinfonietta’s prominent keyboard part was deftly executed by David Ward-Steinman. A resident composer at San Diego State University whose primary idiom has been neoclassicism, Ward-Steinman was completely at home in the Martinu.

Compared to last week’s elegant, detailed interpretation of Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloe” by the San Diego Symphony under Yoav Talmi, Barra’s Ravel was sadly pedestrian. The nuanced phrasing and delicate textures that Ravel requires were absent; only Barra’s unrelenting pulse and generalized approach propelled this undistinguished “Tombeau.”