MUSIC REVIEW : Buckley Guests at Santa Barbara

When Santa Barbara Symphony conductor Varujan Kojian died of cancer early this year, he left the organization in a state of shock and a quandary. In his decade at the podium, Kojian polished up the 40-year-old orchestra considerably and left some ample shoes to be filled.

Hence, the search for a suitable replacement is the subplot of the symphony’s current transitional season. Over the course of the year, various guest conductors will in effect, be given live auditions. Road tests, if you will.

Two conductors made their bid last spring, and the season-opening concert in the Arlington Theatre, Saturday, brought on the third candidate for the post, Richard Buckley. The concert won few points for programming, with its appetizer of Barber and main-course warhorses--or classics, depending on whom you talk to--by Tchaikovsky and Beethoven.

Still, the music-making rose to some affecting heights. Buckley wielded the orchestral instrument confidently, showing a sharp ear for balances and dynamic contours in the ranks.

Opening the unabashedly romantic evening with a splash of 20th-Century tokenism was Barber’s “Second Essay for Orchestra” (1942). Buckley embraced its sweeping lines and scampering energy, pushing inexorably forward toward the syrupy earnestness of its finale.

Pianist Jeffrey Biegel plunged into Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 with the proper gusto, displaying seamless dexterity and expressive clarity. The orchestra, for its part, rode the bombastic peaks and pensive valleys persuasively.

After intermission, Buckley & Co. tested their fiber on the hoary turf of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony. Aptly, they brought Napoleonic assertiveness and warm bravado to the Allegro, a muted, sad grace to the Adagio, yielded to the bright burst of the Scherzo, and found fruition in the thematic maze of the finale.

At best stirring, and always at least serviceable, the orchestra under Buckley performed boldly, which may be testament to the guiding hand of both the guest conductor and the former leader’s lingering influence.