MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : Pasadena Symphony Offers ‘Rite of Spring’

Pumping up on the eve of a recording session, Jorge Mester and the Pasadena Symphony offered a preview of their second compact disc Saturday at Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

The program was an intriguing one for its lineage, containing as it did one of the wellsprings of Russian music (Glinka’s “Kamarinskaya”), its apex (Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”), and arguably one of its lower points (Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances).

Though often stated, it is worth reiterating what a good orchestra this is. A part-time ensemble made up of studio musicians and free-lancers isn’t supposed to be able to play this well, isn’t supposed to be able to take on a work as thornily difficult as “The Rite of Spring” with such confidence and flair.

Their “Rite” Saturday sizzled and elbowed, razzed and boomed impressively, in a tight, nimble reading. Mester led with grace and clarity, and in some of the slower and heavier episodes elicited an exceptionally lumbering sound, an orchestral heave-ho. The brass blared with crisp malice. Some of the playing, perhaps, came a little too easily: Stravinsky’s writing in the extremes of range (for high bassoon, high tuba, low piccolo) sometimes emerging too smoothly, strain or awkwardness being the aimed-for effect. Nevertheless, a thrilling performance.

Mester opened with the folksy charms of “Kamarinskaya” and gave it a carefully wrought reading, well-spoken, tasteful, playful.

Conductor and ensemble brought the requisite heft, sentiment and glitz to the Symphonic Dances, some subtle looseness in the section playing of the woodwinds and brass notwithstanding. But why anyone would want to include this cliche-ridden, posturing score on a compact disc with Stravinsky and Glinka is beyond one listener.