Pasadena Pops Goes a Bit Afield

While a number of our musical organizations have launched their winter seasons, the Pasadena Pops was just winding up its summer schedule, Saturday night in a chilly Descanso Gardens.

Rachael Worby, music director of the Wheeling (W.Va.) Symphony and remembered locally for a stint with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, served as guest conductor for the occasion, as the Pops continues its search for a permanent conductor.

The concert location--a flat, grassy area spotted with oak trees--afforded no natural sound benefits, and the Pops has no sound shell. The amplification was basic but not unduly distorted or tinny. Violins proved overexposed in the aural picture, the back rows of the orchestra too distant.

The program featured a Reader’s Digest survey of classical hits--single movements from symphonies, excerpts from ballets, even a snippet from the “1812” Overture. The performances ranged from messy to secure. Worby managed some delicate touches in Ravel’s “Pavane” and Copland’s “Corral Nocturne” (from “Rodeo”) and expansive phrasing in Verdi’s Overture to “La Forza del Destino.”

The orchestra’s traversal of Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony’s finale had energy and force. The brass made notable contributions to Holst’s “Jupiter” and the Verdi. Otherwise, the music making was rudimentary.

Worby delivered various anecdotes and historical information in a lively, engaging and polished manner. Still, her talks contained a number of stretchers, passed off as pure fact to the unsuspecting. For instance, her opening spiel touted the program as featuring examples of musical Nationalism, while the first three pieces (and several others) she then conducted weren’t. Tsk, tsk.