MUSIC REVIEW : A Not-So-Grand Pasadena Finale

The Pasadena Symphony ended its 65th anniversary season Saturday night with a provocative program that paired the lyrical sunshine of Berlioz’s “Nuits d’ete” with the dramatic thunder of Beethoven’s Ninth.

It should have been a grand finale. It turned out to be a not-so-grand miscalculation.

Jorge Mester, who has been doing splendid work as music director in Pasadena for nine years, obviously wanted to make the celebration festive yet intimate. The intention was noble.

He had to make do, however, with a budget that severely restricted rehearsal time, not to mention personpower and the choice of soloists. He also had to contend with the acoustical quirks of the cavernous Civic Auditorium, in which small sounds evaporate upon emission and big ones turn into nasty, noisy clunks.

The Pasadena Symphony employs many of the finest free-lance musicians in the Los Angeles area. On a good night, they play with the unified spirit and stylistic cohesion of a genuine ensemble. On this occasion, they played like a collection of isolated individuals, and some of them--especially in the beleaguered brass and breathless wind sections--seemed to be confronting unaccustomed technical difficulties.

The introspective Berlioz songs are usually performed these days by a single soprano. With the luxury (everything is relative) of a vocal quartet on hand for Beethoven’s Ninth, Mester decided to honor a semblance of the composer’s original intentions and allot the six settings to singers of various ranges and timbre.

The idea proved better than its execution. All four soloists--Margaret Morrison, soprano; Marvellee Cariaga, mezzo-soprano; Philip Skinner, bass; and Seung-Won Choi, tenor--encountered difficulties of one sort or another: with the tessitura, the language, the need for subtle inflection or expressive focus, even with proper pitch.

Mester and the orchestra provided reasonably neat, stubbornly matter-of-fact accompaniment. The essential Gallic shimmer eluded them, as did the subtle nuances and nostalgic images. There was more prose here than poetry.

In the Beethoven, the agitated passages tended toward frenzy, and the extended reflections became oddly hectic. The long-delayed “Ode to Joy” rose to its wonted gut-thumping climax, but did so nervously, in fits and spasms, at the expense of majesty.

A note in the rather amateurish program magazine heralded “a unique performance” that would hark to “the traditional performance practices of the early 19th Century.” Respecting historical correctness, we were told, “the string section and chorus have been reduced in size to provide a more authentic, balanced and proportioned texture.”

The prospect of a small-scaled Ninth is indeed intriguing. To make sense, however, it would have to be presented in a comparably small-scaled house. The Civic Auditorium seats 3,000.

Mester still ended up using generous forces: an orchestra of nearly 70 players and a chorus--the ever-solid Pacific Chorale--enlisting close to 120 singers. He didn’t turn his back very emphatically on contemporary custom. One had to wonder if the avowed concern for ancient values was predicated more on economic reality than on musicological fidelity.

In any case, both performing units strained for heroic impact. Transparency was a sometime thing. Mester favored fast tempos in the Toscanini manner, but nimble articulation often fell victim to instrumental scramble.

The soloists found Beethoven marginally more congenial that Berlioz. Skinner, who had employed a conscientious but constricted mezza-voce for “Sur les lagunes,” mustered reasonable fervor for Schiller’s invocation. Choi’s sweet, lightweight tenor was severely tested by the heavyweight outbursts of “Froh wie seine Sonnen fliegen.” Like many a soprano before her, Morrison succumbed to stridence under pressure and, like many a mezzo, Cariaga all but vanished in the complex vocal fabric.

Perhaps next time. . . .