‘Peanuts Gallery’ Suite Evokes the Spirit of Schulz

It was not planned this way, of course, but with the recent death of beloved cartoonist Charles Schulz, the opening of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s new family concerts series became something of a valediction.

The climax of the program, Sunday afternoon at the Alex Theater in Glendale, was the local premiere of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s “Peanuts Gallery,” a little suite of genuinely engaging musical portraits.

Not that there was much very somber about the event. Zwilich did give Linus and Charlie Brown some gently pensive and lyrical music, but elsewhere the spirit was smart and sassy, particularly in Schroeder’s Beethoven sendup and Snoopy’s flamboyant samba.

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Commissioned by Carnegie Hall and given its premiere by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, “Peanuts Gallery” has readily accessible surface attractions and a sophisticated inner musical life.

LACO music director Jeffrey Kahane gave the West Coast premiere of the piece two seasons ago with his Santa Rosa Symphony, of which Schulz was a longtime supporter. He introduced it here with amiable personal anecdotes and led a limber, gleaming performance from the piano, a featured but by no means predominating instrument.

At midpoint Kahane did test the concentration of his child-filled audience and the Alex’s acoustics with a nobly rapt, soft and inward account of the first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata, a program addition in memory of Schulz.

He brought wandering attentions back into the fold, however, with a bright, sharply inflected reading of the Rondo finale from Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

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The concert began with a sprightly, well-energized reading of Britten’s “Simple Symphony.” It is hard to fault either the performances or Kahane’s conversational introductions, but the agenda and pace left the “Peanuts” payoff long delayed, to the point that some families were exiting as it started.

Enough remained to roar approval of the encore however--a reprise of the “Peanuts Gallery” samba, this time with a dancing costumed Snoopy--and to stay after in their seats asking questions of Kahane and Co.