Two Foss Piano Concertos Plucked From Obscurity by the Pacific Symphony

Even as an 11-year-old, American composer Lukas Foss made a lasting impression on French composer Darius Milhaud.

“I showed him some works, and he said, ‘Very interesting,’ ” Foss said in a recent phone interview from his home in New York.

“I met him again 20 years later and he said, ‘I remember you and what you said to me. You showed me your music. It was very nice. But I asked you, Why do you write like Schumann? You said, Because all that modern stuff won’t last.’ ”

The irony is that Foss, 77, is perhaps best known for his “modern stuff.”

Foss is being honored this week by Carl St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony, which will play his two piano concertos with Van Cliburn medalists Jon Nakamatsu and Yakov Kasman on Wednesday and Thursday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. They will all go on to record the works this weekend for Harmonia Mundi.

Actually, Foss’ music falls into two broad periods--a neoclassical one, into which his two piano concertos fall--and a later experimental one.

“I changed as a result of improvisation,” Foss said. “It was supposed to change my [UCLA composition] students. It changed me instead. It opened me to aleatory music and serial music. The Second Concerto, in fact, is my last neoclassical work.”

Because the First Concerto was never published, Cliburn gold medalist Nakamatsu had to learn it from manuscript.

“It’s hard and it takes a long time to learn,” Nakamatsu said recently from his home in San Jose. “But it’s not the kind of virtuoso fireworks that you might see in Rachmaninoff. There are splashes of Hindemith and Stravinsky.

“It was written, unbelievably, when he was between 17 and 21 years old. It’s a relatively early work.”

Nakamatsu called the work “tuneful.”

“The main themes are quite obvious,” he said. “But what he builds on a lot are rhythmic patterns, very strong syncopations and very definitely emphasis on beat and meter, and that’s what makes it quite exciting.

“But it’s not something so cerebral that the general populace wouldn’t be attracted to it. There are definitely lines that are singable and interesting harmonies and a lot of blending of styles. I think it deserves to be heard.”

The Second Concerto is twice as long as the First, silver medalist Kasman said recently from his home in Huntsville, Ala.

“He was an extremely virtuosic pianist, and the concerto is very difficult technically. But it’s definitely tuneful. This is not a dodecaphonic [twelve-tone] composition at all. It has a lot of melodies. Most of them you’ll be able to remember immediately. I like the piece, even though it was hard to work on.”

Both pianists went to New York to play the works under the composer’s supervision.

“In spots, he said, ‘I had thought it was a little slower here, a little more romantic, less rubato,’ ” Nakamatsu said. “But at other times, he said, ‘Well, do it your way’ or ‘Your way is perfect’ ,” especially regarding tempos.

“You look at metronomic markings, and think, gosh, you want it at that speed?”

“These are approximations,” Foss said. “Use them if it works. That’s what I thought at the time.”

Nakamatsu said it validated his feelings as an interpreter. “It gives me freedom to try to do it the way I want.”

Kasman said the composer gave him some advice and “told me a few stories about this composition, which were very helpful and also very honest.” But he declined to repeat any stories.

Foss chides only himself for the works’ obscurity.

“It’s my own fault,” he said. “I never promote things.”

* Carl St.Clair will conduct the Pacific Symphony in Lukas Foss’ First and Second Piano Concertos on Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Jon Nakamatsu and Yakov Kasman will be the soloists. $18 to $50. ($10 student/senior rush tickets.) (714) 556-2787.

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Chris Pasles can be reached at (714) 966-5602 or by e-mail at chris.pasles@latimes.com.