MUSIC REVIEW : Santa Barbara Symphony Premieres Elmer Bernstein Songs

Elmer Bernstein’s “Songs of Love and Loathing” promise more than they deliver. Setting seven mildly contrasting texts from various sources in a 20-minute song cycle, the celebrated film composer has produced a very attractive but pallid poetic mural which seldom evokes strong feelings.

Given its world premiere performance Saturday night, the new work sounded gorgeous but caused few goose-bumps.

It used the considerable resources of the Santa Barbara Symphony and conductor Varujan Kojian, plus the warm and pointed vocal skills of mezzo-soprano soloist Elizabeth Mannion. But it accomplishes only nominal high points, and at this premiere gave no thrills.

The choice of texts--drawn from the Bible, from ancient Moroccan and Pali sources, and from 12th-, 17th- and 19th-Century poets--may account for the blandness of the score, a handsome, genuinely eclectic melange of post-Romantic styles (it might have been written 50 years ago) and a compendium of sensible word-setting.

Yet, despite many opportunities, it never achieves either eroticism or meanness. Admirable and touching lyricism, yes, as at “In its center are fountains and water jetting up like milk,” in the finally warming last song.

Nevertheless, Mannion, assisted gamely by Kojian & Co.--who seem highly attuned to each other as they come to the end of their fourth year together--lavished lush sounds and consistent word sensitivity on the new piece. The composer, sitting in the front row of the ample (2,007 seats) but not-cavernous Arlington Theatre, was present, to acknowledge a friendly reception.

After intermission, Kojian offered a solid, often clarified reading of the uncut First Symphony by Gustav Mahler--complete with the usually omitted “Blumine” movement.

With no histrionics from the podium, this performance moved purposefully through its progress--not surprisingly, the often-suppressed second movement adds to its cohesion--the symmetry of its form clear-cut, its climaxes firmly, but not overwhelmingly, in place. Kojian may look stoic, but the musical results he gets belie that impression.

And his very accomplished orchestra, which performs as a unit only 25 times every year--the brass and strings in particular play above the level one expects in this budget-class--sounds like an ensemble on the verge of a breakthrough to a higher musical plateau.