MUSIC REVIEW : Davies Brings His Bonn Orchestra to Costa Mesa

Symphonic bands from far and farther continue to visit Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Friday, the Orchester der Beethovenhalle Bonn made an appearance there before an enthusiastic audience.

Fortunately, the accomplished, 121-member orchestra was led, with his usual vigor and panache, by Dennis Russell Davies. Unfortunately, Davies and his ensemble from the West German capital--now on an inaugural North American tour--brought a program of no special interest to the Orange County Philharmonic Society series.

The 45-year-old American conductor, who is artistic director of the City of Bonn, and who will soon also head the musical fortunes of the Brooklyn Academy and the Brooklyn Philharmonic in this country, makes sensible, fascinating musical agendas. He has been doing so--in St. Paul, Stuttgart and Santa Cruz, to name three of his bases of operations--for two decades.

This program made sense, and certainly showed the Beethovenhalle orchestra--it is named after the theater where it performs--to advantage.

But, alas, the line-up consisted of second-rate works by first-rank composers. Such agendas, no matter how well delivered, always send listeners home unsatisfied.

In balanced, aggressive and thoughtful readings, Beethoven’s “King Stephan” Overture, Schumann’s “Konzertstuck,” for four horns and orchestra, and Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony all gave pleasure.

With often thin-sounding strings, a mediocre wind contingent and middling solo players, the Bonn orchestra is no virtuoso band. But under Davies it plays decently and, in this debut appearance, with genuine confidence.

Still, a certain hunger panged the observer when this occasion was over. One had to admire the single-mindedness and probity of Davies’ way with “King Stephan,” despite some raggednesses of execution in the ensemble.

And the gloom-pervaded beauties in Prokofiev’s wartime Sixth Symphony emerged well articulated--some of the playing achieving real brilliance.

Davies obviously believes in this pessimistic score and has convinced his colleagues of its importance. They performed with conviction. And the linearity, the surge of the conductor’s vision, cannot be denied. Still, it remains a matter of controversy that the work deserves such dedication.

The novelty, at mid-program, was Schumann’s handsome concert-piece for four horns, here played by a quartet of orchestra members: Gustav Kedves, Dietmar Krenz, Charles Putnam and Geoffrey Winter. They cleared all technical hurdles, blended neatly in those moments calling for such, and obviously deserved their spotlight.