Music Review : Royal Philharmonic, Ashkenazy at El Camino

The program Valdimir Ashkenazy and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra offered Friday evening at El Camino College--the second stop on the local swing of its current tour--put the emphasis squarely on the conductor, listing Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony and Dvorak’s Eighth.

Superficially at least, these works should make a complementary couple, viewing as they do much common ground from individual perspectives. As conceived by Ashkenazy and executed by the RPO, however, the pairing seemed entirely a matter of contrasts.

In Dvorak, the Royal musicians sounded positively imperial, particularly in the middle movements. Rich, firmly focused and articulated strings launched an absorbingly detailed account of the complex, wondrous Adagio, and Ashkenazy allowed his band to have its seductive, dancing way with the Allegretto.

The outer sections framed this glowing core nicely, played with a lean, balanced effort, and straightforward in interpretation.

Sibelius’ Fifth is a much more stubborn, less immediately ingratiating piece. Ashkenazy and Co. gave it respectable, diligent work but little sense of cumulative drama or even incidental excitement. Ashkenazy--conducting from memory throughout--labored stiffly, and his orchestra often produced thin, scattered sound, wayward in ensemble and intonation.