Dance, Music Reviews : Carr Solos With Pasadena Symphony

Familiar but unhackneyed repertory, including a pair of engaging, non-threatening 20th-Century works, was woven into an attractive program by conductor Jorge Mester for his Pasadena Symphony concert on Saturday in Civic Auditorium.

Colin Carr, better known as one-third of the excellent Golub--Kaplan-Carr Trio, tended to the solo duties of the Dvorak Cello Concerto masterfully, with a firm, bright tone that alternatingly meshed with and sailed over Mester’s sensitively deployed orchestra.

What a pleasure to hear this score projected with Carr’s precise intonation, naturalness of expression and rhythmic thrust--without the palsied, line-destroying vibrato (and concomitant facial choreography) espoused by some of today’s star cellists.

Where Dvorak danced, brooded and sang nobly, Hindemith, in his “Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Weber,” grumbled amiably, the score’s lumpy humor skillfully conveyed by the conductor and his charges.

Mester and his superb brass section delineated the Teutonic jazz riffs of the second movement deftly, while the walloping finale, which conjures up unlikely visions of sprinting behemoths, was delivered with spirited cohesiveness--without quelling scholarly suspicions that its ultimate march theme was lifted by the composer from the U. of Frankfurt’s fight song.

The program opened with Copland’s full-orchestra version of his “Appalachian Spring,” which, on this occasion, conveyed much of the intimacy of the chamber original.

Credit Mester’s relaxed, clarifying touch and the pointed, exacting response of his wind soloists.