O.C. MUSIC REVIEW : Zukerman Subs for Ill Galway on Short Notice

With scores faxed to her less than 24 hours before the concert, flutist Eugenia Zukerman stepped in to replace ailing superstar James Galway on Tuesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Zukerman, who had never collaborated with the Tokyo String Quartet, with whom Galway was supposed to start a national tour in Costa Mesa, managed to get only 90 minutes to rehearse two Mozart pieces on the program.

Under the circumstances, no one had the right to expect an inspired collaboration or an evening of great music making, and in fact, it didn’t turn out to be one.

Zukerman offered secure, steady and pure tone, but also--understandably--unexamined and simplistic phrasing. She proved tense and hectic in Mozart’s D-major Flute Quartet but more relaxed in his Quartet in A.

The quartet, formed in 1969 at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, remains committed to a hushed, poetic elegance that could easily evaporate in cavernous, 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall. Still, violinists Peter Oundjian and Kikuei Ikeda; violist Kazuhide Isomura, viola; and cellist Sadao Harada all proved polished and reserved in Ravel’s Quartet in F and more lively in Beethoven’s Third “Rasumovsky” Quartet.

Perhaps we should have been grateful there had been a program at all.

If all had gone as planned, superstar flutist Galway would be touring with the Tokyo String Quartet. Starting in Orange County, the tour had three other Southland stops: today at Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena; Friday at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert; Saturday at the San Diego Civic Theatre.

Then illness struck Galway.

On Monday, his agents in New York reported that he had diverticulitis. The next day, the story changed: Galway had a stomach virus. In either case, he needed to go into a hospital in Philadelphia, leaving the Southland engagements hanging in precarious doubt.

The powers-that-be at Ambassador canceled that concert outright. Apparently, however, they didn’t bother to consult first with the quartet members, the musicians said during the intermission break in Costa Mesa, where a program did go on.

The Orange County Philharmonic Society--sponsors of the Costa Mesa engagement--had managed to locate Zukerman, who happened to be flying in to appear at the South Bay Center for the Performing Arts at El Camino College on Friday. She actually was on the same plane as one of the Tokyo members, though they had not met yet.

She agreed to fill in, in both Costa Mesa and San Diego.

(The managers of the Palm Desert facility found a different substitute flutist--Ransom Wilson--to appear with the quartet.)

The OCPAC program changed a little. Dropped were a work by Reicha and one of the three Flute Quartets by Mozart; one Beethoven Quartet was substituted for another, and Ravel’s Quartet in F was added.

Zukerman received the scores by fax less than 24 hours before the concert. Despite good intentions to rehearse longer, the performers said they had only 90 minutes for the two Mozart pieces.

The Philharmonic Society offered refunds. About 150 patrons out of the sold-out house asked for money back, according to executive director Erich Vollmer.

The society management was apologetic. In pre-concert remarks to the audience, Vollmer took a swipe at an unnamed Los Angeles music critic who recently complained about hucksterism from the stage, then offered every patron there a complimentary ticket to baritone Thomas Hampson’s recital next Tuesday at the center. As of Wednesday, 1,300 tickets were reportedly given out.

The pre-concert remarks concluded when first violinist Peter Oundjian came out to convey apologies and good wishes from Galway and also, believe it or not, to tell what he called Galway’s “joke of the week.” Something about three parrots . . . .