MUSIC REVIEW : Rosner’s Work Misses Part of Its Mark

The course of 20th-Century music can be charted as a series of pendulum swings from ear-pleasing simplicity to mind-stretching complexity.

In the mid-century, the simple gifts of Aaron Copland’s tone poems gave way to the intellectual feats of Elliott Carter’s craggy concertos. Today, the minimalist shorthand of Philip Glass and John Adams stands out against the computer-generated formulas of Roger Reynolds and Iannis Xenakis.

In Arnold Rosner’s “Gematria,” premiered Sunday by the Jewish Community Center Orchestra at Theatre East, the New York composer attempted to capture complexity and simplicity in a single gesture. In his 14-minute essay for orchestra and ample percussion, Rosner successfully embraced simplicity in the opening trumpet call over modal strings, recalling the earlier writing of American composer Alan Hovhaness. Simplicity also reigned in scattered, majestic chorale fragments and in the work’s haunting finale.

But, in the more intense sections, densely layered counterpoint--more rhythmic than melodic polyphony--quickly saturated the ear. This frieze of cross rhythms at times came dangerously close to sounding like an orchestra warming up before the overture, compromising the spiritual ethos Rosner so deftly invoked. This work is the first of his three yearly commissions announced by the JCC orchestra.

Music director David Amos surrounded “Gematria” with familiar but not unimaginative fare: the Second Suite from Bizet’s “Carmen” and Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto with soloist Ingrid Jacoby. He opened with Glinka’s colorful “Russlan and Ludmilla” Overture. Under Amos’ authoritative baton, the 65-member JCC orchestra responded crisply and with great brio. Straightforward in his conducting style, Amos elicited strong rhythmic vitality without dancing on the podium.

The generally well-disciplined string sections contended with woodwinds of unsteady pitch and lower brasses that favored punchy, marching-band articulation. Though the “Carmen” Suite showed more muscle than finesse, the two outer movements aptly caught Bizet’s sensuous lyricism.

Jacoby brought her massive, fluent technique to the Brahms concerto, but little more. Even if she could be forgiven her aggressive, pouncing attacks, there was no relief from her monochromatic approach that turned everything, even the most delicious melodic themes, into brittle declamation.