South Coast Symphony Perform’s Beethoven’s Seventh

Point, precision and purpose--key ingredients for a successful performance of a Beethoven symphony--were all in place Saturday evening for the second program in the South Coast Symphony’s current season at Orange Coast College.

Conductor John Larry Granger took a no-nonsense approach to the Seventh Symphony, eliciting crisp, pointed attacks and clean releases, maintaining appropriate balances and creating a strong sense of direction.

In the Finale, which he began a mere second after the last chord of the Scherzo, his gaze seemed to have been fixed on the final A-major chord, so strong was the momentum which he generated.

A few instances of imperfect intonation or unclean passage-work hardly detracted from this stylish, spirited performance. Granger presided over an ensemble remarkably accurate in its delivery, notably taut in its rhythmicity. Indeed, the orchestra seems to grow tighter and more polished each season.

Before intermission, baritone John Atkins offered a disappointing account of Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder.” Though he produced a handsome, rounded sound and mustered respectable pronunciation of the German words, those words seemed to mean nothing to him: Atkins projected little of the tragedy and none of the poignancy of Ruckert’s poetry. His stance remained rigid (though he often leaned to the right, perhaps to stay clear of Granger’s killer backhand) and his dynamics stayed within a narrow range.

Atkins’ vocal range proved narrow, too, for high notes emerged thin and colorless and low notes hardly projected at all, which made the storm song essentially impotent.

The orchestra played with far more sympathy; one heard some tellingly expressive English horn playing in the third song. Except for a quivering French horn, all of the wind soloists played with artful sensitivity. The vibrancy of timbre in Mahler’s transparent score, however, was apparently lost in the unflattering acoustics of Robert B. Moore Theatre.

Granger kicked off the relatively short program with a vigorous and nicely delineated account of the Overture from Handel’s “Music for the Royal Fireworks.”