CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW : Pianist Romero Soars as Star of Chamber Orchestra Program

Seldom absent from the local scene for more than a few months, pianist Gustavo Romero returned triumphantly Monday night to Sherwood Auditorium as soloist with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra. The ever-smiling Romero, winner of last year’s Clara Haskil piano competition, subdued the mighty challenges of Saint-Saens’ Second Piano Concerto with confidence and technique to spare.

From his bold, fluid opening solo, he demonstrated the enviable ease with which he shifted from brilliant, explosive attacks to elegant sighs, without batting an eyelash.

The 24-year-old pianist took in stride the sophisticated antics in the Allegro scherzando, cleanly delineating the rippling phrases of Saint-Saens’ tongue-in-chic. Like Romero’s Mozart playing, which to date has been his calling card, his performance of this large-scale concerto bristled with urgency and a keen sense of drama surging beneath the shimmering surface.

Music director Donald Barra and his orchestra played in Romero’s shadow and at one grand climax were actually drowned out by a fury of crashing octaves from the Steinway.

Barra cannily placed the Saint-Saens Concerto at the end of the concert, since his Sherwood Auditorium audiences are notorious for decamping at intermission once the guest artist has dispensed with the obligatory solo vehicle. Although this meant the sold-out house had to remain for the full program, the wait for Romero was relatively painless and--at least in the case of the orchestra’s stylish, alert reading of Beethoven’s First Symphony--rewarding.

For this program, Barra had all the wind players in place and added some extra strings for good measure. In the Beethoven, this made the orchestra’s balance close to ideal, and, under Barra’s sympathetic direction, the First Symphony sparkled with a jaunty, optimistic bounce. It was one of the chamber orchestra’s most cohesive, convincing performances this season.

The program-opening Mozart Overture from “The Abduction from the Seraglio” was peppy but significantly less polished, and Darius Milhaud’s urbane, Brazilian picture post card, “Le Boeuf sur le Toit,” lacked its wonted joyous spontaneity. Barra drove it relentlessly and without humor, allowing the orchestra’s fortes to bray uncomfortably in the modest 500-seat hall. Principal trumpet John Wilds relished his carnival-like solos and executed them with stentorian authority.