MUSIC REVIEW : Copland Tribute Falters

With a little program shuffling, San Diego Chamber Orchestra music director Donald Barra turned his Monday concert into a tribute to the late Aaron Copland, who died Dec. 2. Copland’s Clarinet Concerto already had been programmed, and Barra dropped the scheduled “Danses Concertantes” by Stravinsky in favor of Copland’s first orchestral opus, “Music for the Theatre.”

It would be gratifying to report that the performance of these two works shed new light on the Copland genius, but no such revelations took place at Monday’s Sherwood Auditorium concert. At least the audience was spared yet another dutiful rendition of “Appalachian Spring.”

Copland’s infatuation with jazz rhythms may have shocked staid symphony audiences when “Music for the Theatre” was premiered in 1925, but now the piece sounds artificially exotic and overly calculated. Barra’s players treated its adolescent bravado with respect and affection, nonetheless.

Frank Garcia, the orchestra’s principal clarinet, made an earnest case for the oddly designed, single movement Clarinet Concerto (which was commissioned by Benny Goodman in 1947). Garcia handled the limpid, sustained solo lines at the outset gracefully. But, in the jaunty, extroverted finale he was bound by the sort of expressive straitjacket students too frequently show when they hope to win a teacher’s approval by playing every note perfectly.

A refreshing reading of Samuel Barber’s ubiquitous “Adagio for Strings” opened the concert. Barra’s intimate, understated approach and the orchestra’s subtle, unforced playing made this one of the most rewarding performances to date by the San Diego Chamber Orchestra. Instead of homogenizing the orchestra into one lush wave of string sound, Barra asked for individual colors from each string section. The result was a balance of sounds closer to string quartet sonority, for which the “Adagio” originally was written.

Respighi’s “Trittico Botticelliano” (1927) wallows in decadent pictorial description and overripe orchestration. Despite the orchestra’s well-tuned, cohesive performance, this program didn’t need another genial, tuneful suite. Are the audience’s ears so tender that the slightest dissonance or challenge will drive them away? This all 20th-Century program could not have been more innocuous. It was like attempting to find a balanced meal at the dessert buffet.