MUSIC REVIEW : Clark, Pacific Symphony Muster Fake Beethoven, Real Brahms

Every once in a while, some not-so-good Samaritan comes along and puts a head on the “Winged Victory” or provides the missing limbs for the Venus de Milo or completes Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony.

Gimmickry invariably looms with each such effort. So does inevitable failure. Nevertheless, the fleeting PR value carries its own irresistible reward.

This season’s most modish mock-revelation has been billed as Beethoven’s 10th Symphony. Actually, it is nothing of the kind--just a little orchestral essay in the late-Beethoven manner “realized,” rather clumsily and dutifully, from assorted quasi-authentic sketches by a Scottish musicologist named Barry Cooper.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic ventured the much-ballyhooed and little-appreciated premiere last October. This was followed by disappointing but well-publicized performances in London and New York, not to mention a breathlessly hyped recording.

The unreasonable facsimile offered by the Pacific Symphony under Keith Clark Wednesday night at the Orange County Performing Arts Center was heralded as the West Coast premiere. Actually, that dubious honor had already fallen to San Jose, which heard the ersatz symphony back in November.

Premiere or no premiere, the so-called 10th is a cautious and inconsequential exercise in musical guesswork. It meanders prettily and naively for a while in lyrical circles, then pops off for the obligatory contrast of some dramatic naivete before returning meekly to andante basics.

Some of the piece sounds like Beethoven salvaged from the cutting-room floor. Much of it sounds like the throat-clearing of a dull Beethoven imitator who is forced to vamp until ready. At 16 minutes, this is a short piece but a long vamp.

Clark and his charges gave it a ragged introductory reading. Significantly, perhaps, the audience couldn’t muster enough enthusiasm to recall the music director for a single bow.

Matters improved in the major challenge of the evening, Brahms’ First Piano Concerto. The odd acoustical ambiance of Segerstrom Hall reduced much of the rhetoric to mush. The orchestral impulses threatened to get flabby whenever agitation beckoned. Internal intonation was often questionable. Still, the spirit was willing and, most important, Horacio Gutierrez illuminated the solo utterances with urgency, fluidity and rhapsodic grandeur.

The centerpiece on the program took the unaccustomed form of Joseph Schwantner’s “New Morning for the World,” a setting of speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. First performed in Rochester six years ago--with none other than Willie Stargell of the Pittsburgh Pirates as narrator--it allows the orchestra to vacillate between movie-music slush and instant bombast while the soloist recites some poignant historical texts.

The intentions are obviously lofty. Unfortunately, Schwantner did little but crank out prosaic busy-music to surround the uplifting prose.

On this occasion, William Warfield spoke the uplifting prose with clarity and emotional point. The affect was intensified by understatement but compromised by microphone echoes.

Clark exhorted the orchestra to make a mighty accompanying noise. The noise, not incidentally, sounded blurry and distorted beyond the norm.

Once again, the specter of amplification clouded aesthetic and musical issues in Orange County.