Music : British Chamber Orchestra Offers Joyous Program at Ambassador

Returning to Ambassador Auditorium over the weekend, the 18-member chamber orchestra of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields showed that it needs no help in putting together a first-rate evening of music for strings, or in filling the 1,200-seat hall with interested listeners. Its varied program and suave performances displayed that, again.

Yet at its Saturday night visit to the Pasadena showplace, the group had a soloist, and an unnecessary one.

The appearance of the popular American guitarist Christopher Parkening in not one but two concerted works became a superfluity in a program already containing cherishable works by Mozart, Rossini, Hindemith and Tchaikovsky.

Worse, the mellow Parkening brought no distinction, little articulation and few insights into arrangements specially made for him of a Concerto in D by Vivaldi and Peter Warlock’s “Capriol” Suite. Beautifully accompanied by the players of the orchestra--this ensemble is the medium-size group of three bands touring under the Academy name--Parkening seemed a fifth wheel on an already well-equipped vehicle.

By itself, the ensemble gave distinguished, clarified, well-plotted and nearly immaculate performances.

In a Mozart year just a month old, Sillito’s leadership of the D-major Divertimento seemed to be an early high point: bright and aggressive but thoughtful and emotionally resonant. The same kinds of pristine joys characterized Rossini’s early Sonata in G. Tchaikovsky’s familiar Serenade for Strings rang out, declaimed, sang and murmured--this group does possess what may be the strongest, best-defined dynamic contrasts in the business--unabashedly. And pungency of mood as well as harmony made Hindemith’s Opus 44 doubly welcome--just like these British visitors.