Music Review : Chamber Music Fest Opens Mildly

For the opening concert of the 20th annual Seal Beach Chamber Music Festival on Thursday, director Alan Parker got together 13 local free-lance string players, dubbed them the Haydn Orchestra and presented second-echelon works by Purcell, Janacek, Mendelssohn and Haydn. The results were mixed.

While one could certainly appreciate the general vitality of the playing, its directness and even, occasionally, its sensitivity, no one was going to confuse this group with a full-time chamber orchestra, or Parker with a veteran conductor. These performances were basically straightforward run-throughs, with niceties of intonation, tone, ensemble polish and interpretation missing.

It may have been a pleasant enough evening for many of those in attendance at McGaugh School auditorium, but there was little here for the serious listener.

Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist Lawrence Sonderling proved a welcome guest, however, as soloist in Haydn’s Violin Concerto in G. He sketched its Rococo lines with quiet elegance, took its virtuoso hurdles with clean and poised precision and shaped its modest tunes with singing lightness.

The concert opened with Purcell’s overture and eight little dances--hornpipes, airs, a jig, a march--to the play, “The Married Beau, or The Curious Impertinent,” amiable, cheerful tidbits.

After intermission, Parker led accounts of Janacek’s early Suite for Strings, a quaint amalgam of Wagner and Dvorak, and Mendelssohn’s String Symphony No. 10, written when the composer was 14.

All these pieces seemed to show that even the big-name composers wrote music not especially worth contemplating at length.

Parker supplied no-nonsense direction, and the orchestra responded with spirit and sturdiness.

* The 20th annual Seal Beach Chamber Music Festival continues Thursdays through Aug. 18 at the McGaugh School auditorium, 1698 Bolsa Ave., Seal Beach. Free. (310) 496-4749.