Strings Hum in a Sylvan Glen as Symphony Performs Alfresco

They play in an oddly alluring performance space--a ravine deep within Griffith Park, with two sloping hillsides and a narrow plateau divided by a rocky dry brook and partially shaded by several trees. They draw a remarkably diverse audience--all ages and ethnic groups, a cross-section of those who visit this oasis in our sadly park-poor city. They are, alas, dryly amplified.

Yet most importantly, the Symphony in the Glen plays well enough to overcome the distractions, and music director Arthur B. Rubinstein’s programming, while geared to a general audience, can take a refreshing left turn.

Sunday afternoon’s concert was devoted to music for string orchestra, bread-and-butter standards, with one diverting exception. This was Richard Greene’s “The Little Rabbit,” in which the soloist plays country fiddle tunes with a string orchestra that basically follows his lead with little further elaboration. Only five minutes long, it can be accurately tagged as a pocket fiddle concerto, and the versatile composer-violinist plays it delightfully.

A brisk, tightly played rendition of Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” led off the afternoon, a bit businesslike yet blossoming with fleet, lithe energy in the Rondo. Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,” which you seldom hear in concert despite its proliferation on CDs, didn’t fare quite as well outdoors. The hushed concentration and rich, massive string tone that the piece needs was missing, though there was no denying the emotional thrust of the coda.

Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, however, was excellent; Rubinstein knows how to linger without sentimentality, and he could conjure gently gliding rhythms in the Waltz, and fine, crackling drive in the finale.

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* Symphony in the Glen returns Sept. 12 and Oct. 24, 3 p.m., Griffith Park, free. (213) 955-6976.