Music Review : L.A. Jewish Symphony Ends Debut Season

Topping off a brief--two concerts, to be exact--but hopeful first season, the L.A. Jewish Symphony offered an accessible program Tuesday at University Synagogue in Brentwood, a space with friendly acoustics if cramped stage space. A stated goal is to present music of Jewish composers, which in this case meant friendly modernism from Aaron Copland, Darius Milhaud and Erich Korngold.

Overall, the concert tended to skim pleasant surfaces rather plumb depths. What the program may have lacked in substance, the performance gained in impassioned delivery, at conductor Noreen Green’s behest.

“Quiet City” (1940) typifies classic Coplandia, shimmering with big, open chords. Pensiveness errs on the side of light more than dark. Here, soloists Boyde Hood on trumpet and John Ralston on English horn produced sharp, anthemic statements beneath restless string parts hinting at the composer’s more atonal period to come.

Milhaud’s “Le boeuf sur le toit” (The Ox on the Roof) disguises modernist tics behind a rollicking, carnivalesque facade. Frothy themes are cleverly sabotaged via polytonal cross-stitching, squirmy modulations and hairpin dynamic turns. The orchestra responded with uncanny precision and suitably canny passion.

Korngold’s Violin Concerto is based on material from the composer’s bold film scores from the ‘30s, but what washes in the movie theater sounds washed-out in concert. Despite soloist Mark Kashper’s considerable technical and emotive intensity, the score itself seemed disjointed and under-developed, with climaxes and cadenzas that pop up out of nowhere.

Orchestrated klezmer pieces by and featuring clarinetist Zinevy Goro served as sporty encores to a concert that needed more of a center.