MUSIC REVIEW : Soloists Outshine San Diego Chamber Orchestra

Monday night’s concert by the San Diego Chamber Orchestra’ strings at Sherwood Auditorium was more of a sampler designed to showcase local talent than a typically structured chamber orchestra program. Fortunately, the four local soloists gave solid performances that easily dispelled the notion that “local” is just a code word for “second rate.”

Of the four concerted works, Malcolm Arnold’s Concerto for Two Violins, Op. 77, made the most stirring impression. Violinists Igor and Vesna Gruppman (he is the chamber orchestra’s concertmaster and she a member of the violin section) imbued Arnold’s probing, dark essay with appropriate drive and passion. Especially in the bittersweet middle movement, the soloists’ deft balance, elegant phrasing and burnished shimmer mitigated the composer’s astringent harmonies. Music director Donald Barra and his strings aptly mirrored the Gruppmans’ sympathetic interpretation.

Harpist Marian Rian Hays was not the least bit apologetic in her robust approach to Debussy’s “Danses sacree et profane.” Her rich, ringing sound and crisply defined rhythms contrasted with the orchestra’s more cautious, uninflected reading of the score.

When Barra reasserted his leadership in the Vivaldi Concerto for Two Violins in A Minor, Op. 3, No. 8, he overcompensated, pressing the orchestra to punch out its skeletal accompaniment with boorish deliberation. Though the Gruppmans worked at more subtle interchanges and stylistically correct terraced dynamics, they eventually gave in to the conductor’s unrelenting approach.

Ernest Bloch’s Concerto Grosso No. 1, a cheerily progressive essay written in 1917, needs a light touch to bring it off. Though guest pianist Mary Barranger, who played the obbligato piano part, brought ideal clarity and supple articulation to the piece, the orchestra did not respond in kind. The first chair players offered some nicely turned solos in the third movement, but for the most part, the orchestra rattled through the concerto grosso with increasingly ragged ensemble. The final fugue was as subtle as a pep band at halftime.

Barra opened this smorgasbord for soloists with Dag) Wiren’s Serenade for Strings, a modest but frothy neoclassical confection by the late Swedish composer. If Barra had reined his driving, overly fussy beat, the piece might not have sounded so superficial.