Music Reviews : Moscow Orchestra Debuts Locally at the Ambassador

The State Symphonic Kapelle of Moscow is not the stuff of legend--yet. But the 11-year-old orchestra puts out the kind of sophisticated and characterful sound most associated with storied traditions, as demonstrated Saturday at Ambassador Auditorium in its local debut.

That’s because the Kapelle has been formed by a single sonic imagination. Formerly the Soviet Philharmonic and before that the Orchestra of the Ministry of Culture of the U.S.S.R., it was founded in 1981 for Gennady Rozhdestvensky. Led by him ever since, the orchestra is busy recording everything in sight.

Which makes the repertory chosen for this introduction all the more puzzling. Ives’ “Robert Browning” Overture could be understood as a kind of transnational salute, but what quirk of affection brought us Saint-Saens’ feather-weight Symphony No. 1?

Rozhdestvensky’s careful treatment of the modest, Mendelssohnian work of the 18-year-old composer could hardly be called probing, given the complete lack of resistance in the pliant material. But it produced lavish sounds, fastidiously balanced and elegantly phrased.

A symphonic capella by any other name should sound as sweet. The blend was consistent, an impressively rich middle tying it all together, and Rozhdestvensky summoned forth caressive and/or clarion details from rich solo resources.

Fleeting imprecision gave faint evidence of tour trauma--this was the orchestra’s 26th concert since Jan. 11 on a globe-spanning trip--but for the most part the band responded to Rozhdestvensky’s idiosyncratic gestures with alert finesse.

The conductor seemed to regard Ives as some sort of proto-Schnittke, with an unlikely emphasis on mechanical mania in the relentlessly grinding climaxes. His orchestra gave him an explosive, controlled brilliance that glittered even in quietude.

At the center of the program lay the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, in the hands of Aleksandr Rozhdestvensky, 21-year-old son of the conductor. He harnessed big, gleaming sound of supreme clarity to an interpretation laden with calculated rubato and largely devoid of emotional connections.

Rozhdestvensky fils came to technical grief at points--most disruptively in the bouncing furies of the first-movement development--and fizzled at the very end. His father proved equally mannered in accompaniment and the orchestra none too tight.

In encore, Rozhdestvensky pere turned clown, introducing a raucus, blowsy Dance of the Coachmen from Shostakovich’s ballet, “The Bolt,” simply as “something I’m sure you know very well,” miming guitar-playing through its course and blowing a kiss for the cutoff.