MUSIC REVIEW : Chamber Orchestra Opens Season With a Lot of Brass

Following a perfectly honorable tradition, the San Diego Chamber Orchestra launched its 1990-91 season Monday night with the Empire Brass Quintet as guest musicians.

Splashy guest soloists can dress up an opening-night program and reward loyal subscribers. The chamber orchestra has amicably shared the stage with the Empire Brass before, but Monday’s programming gave the local ensemble the short end of the stick.

Only the orchestra’s string section performed, and its main duty was playing backup to the brass quintet’s own arrangements and adaptations of popular classical tidbits. And the bulk of this program was the same potpourri the bouncy brass boys played only a year ago in concert at Copley Symphony Hall for the San Diego Community Concert Assn.

Adding a few chords and a bass line to the Empire Brass version of Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances” or Grieg’s “Anitra’s Dance” revealed little about the orchestra’s abilities. And, in aggressive works such as Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Procession of the Nobles” and Prokofiev’s “Wedding March and Troika” from “Lieutenant Kije,” the orchestra could hardly be heard over the phalanx of brass players splayed across the Sherwood stage.

In its customary Duke Ellington Suite, the Empire Brass flexed its sonic muscles and let its hair down to the Duke’s spirited jazz beat. But the evening’s most winning performance was the Empire’s encore of Leonard Bernstein’s “America” from “West Side Story.” Their throaty sound and athletic articulation captured the musical’s vibrant soul in a single excerpt.

Three pieces on the program were not recycled from last year’s concert. Empire Brass founder Rolf Smedvig and second trumpet Jeffrey Curnow soloed in the program-opening Vivaldi Concerto for Two Trumpets. Their precise phrasing and stylish ornamentation propelled the festive concerto, which was the program’s sole offering originally written for brass and orchestra.

Under the baton of music director Donald Barra, the orchestra gave a well-disciplined, albeit cautious, account of Peter Warlock’s 1926 “Capriol Suite,” a quaint homage to Elizabethan consort music. Benjamin Britten’s breezy “Simple” Symphony, Op. 4, sounded labored and under-rehearsed, although the pizzicato movement came alive with infectious good humor.

Perhaps this program was just the appetizer to the chamber orchestra’s real season. The Nov. 19 program at Sherwood Auditorium promises Mozart’s Haffner Symphony and the Bruch Violin Concerto. That sounds like a real orchestra concert.