Music Reviews : World Premiere of ‘Impresiones’

When Glendale Symphony Orchestra music director Lalo Schifrin asked his audience to observe a moment of silence for the late Leonard Bernstein at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Sunday night, he was paying tribute to a kindred spirit. Like Bernstein, Schifrin knows no professional bounds, feeling comfortable wherever he chooses to hang his hat as a pianist, composer or conductor.

The difference, of course, is the unfathomable gap between true genius and a versatile craftsman. Still, the craftsman can shine in the right setting--and with the world premiere of “Impresiones” Sunday night, Schifrin has come up with a most engaging concert piece.

Inspired by a Federico Garcia Lorca poem, this six-movement, 33-minute trumpet concerto is loaded with attractive Spanish- and South American-influenced tunes, harmonic colors and rhythms. The scoring is always resourceful, with a pronounced Gil Evans influence in the winds, and there are plenty of moments of bravado and repose for the flashy, authoritative trumpet soloist, Doc Severinsen.

Some might be put off by sweeping melodic passages that threaten to turn into the opening credits of a TV miniseries. Yet “Impresiones” easily held one’s attention over its long haul, a good sign of sound construction.

Elsewhere, the concert found the Glendale Symphony in rather mediocre form in its season opener. The strings made a messy hash of the admittedly difficult Mendelssohn Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and Schifrin’s routine reading of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” (in Ravel’s orchestration) lacked the imagination that he displayed as a composer earlier.