Music Reviews : Glendale Symphony Begins 66th Season

A new era in its seven-decade history began for the Glendale Symphony Saturday night, when Lalo Schifrin, formerly a frequent guest conductor, now full music director, opened the orchestra’s 66th consecutive season.

Only one brief speech marred the main business of the evening in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion; that was the introduction to the audience of the conductor by board president Donald Platz. After that, the music itself dominated.

Schifrin, a musician who wears many hats, seems comfortable in most styles, though his particular strengths as a conductor may lie in his expertise as a composer dealing with music of his own century.

The surprise of this performance, then, was in Schifrin’s careful but propulsive--sometimes almost breathtakingly quick--drive through Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Despite the speed, this was a reading both stylish and clarified, and never rushed for the sake of rushing.

Even at its best, the Glendale ensemble has seldom demonstrated as much finesse of phrasing and dynamics as Schifrin seemed to elicit in this performance. In fact, in the program-opening “Huapango,” by Moncayo, some of the rhythmic bite and instrumental energy characteristic of this group of first-rank players seemed blunted, over-smooth.

The thrills--known and reliable--in Rachmaninoff’s C-minor Piano Concerto did not arrive as frequently as anticipated on this occasion.

Vladimir Viardo, the Soviet pianist who returned to this country in 1988 after a long hiatus, proved a rhythmically unstable, if technically adequate, soloist--speeding up, slowing down and generally stretching the musical arch seriously out of line throughout. How Schifrin and the orchestra kept their wits about them is a mystery.