Music and Dance Reviews : Perick Leads Chamber Orchestra’s Neoclassicism

For his program with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra on Thursday at the Japan America Theatre, guest conductor Christof Perick hit on the happy notion of beginning and ending with contrasting examples of 20th-Century neoclassicism.

At the start, there was the Suite from Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella,” based on Neapolitan Baroque music, at the end the “Bourgeois gentilhomme” Suite, Richard Strauss’ Viennese view of the France of Lully and Moliere. There was much to admire in Perick’s clear-cut phrasing and lively pacing of both scores, as well as in the pointed characterizations by the winds. “Pulcinella” was, however, a bit of a mess.

The violin section did not justify the confidence implied by Perick’s spanking tempo for the opening Sinfonia. Ensemble remained insecure until midpoint, the Tarantella, whereupon things rolled with reasonable smoothness to Stravinsky’s rowdy finale.

Strauss fared better, a neat blending of subtlety and showiness, if without the gloss that a few additional performances should bring.

There were pleasures in the delicate flute and string traceries of the first Minuet, in the brassy posturings of “The Fencing Master” (although the piano was barely audible), while the orchestra was in top form for the glorious pomp of the “Cleonte” section.

A special word for the sparkling violin solos of concertmaster Ralph Morrison in both scores: acerbically incisive in “Pulcinella,” dancey and borderline-excruciatingly sweet in “Bourgeois gentilhomme”--each as intended by the composer.

The spaces between the two large works were given over to a welcome visitor, violist Kim Kashkashian, who brought powerfully focused tone and commanding technical facility to her solos.

One has to question, however, her wisdom in programming two such glum, largely slow-motion pieces as Hindemith’s 1936 “Trauermusik” (Funeral Music) and Frank Martin’s 1972 “Ballade.”

Hindemith’s string elegy can be affecting, particularly in a reading as noble as Kashkashian’s, while the “Ballade” is at least strikingly scored (viola, harp, winds, percussion). But played back to back their effect proved more soporific than thought-provoking.