Many and Shifting Moods of Pacific Serenades

From just the evidence of cold stats, Pacific Serenades has ample reason to be proud of itself, having completed 14 full seasons and commissioned no less than 56 new works, with a world premiere on every program this season.

While the series’ first three concerts featured diverse combinations of instruments, the season finale heard at the Pasadena Neighborhood Church on a very warm Sunday afternoon was turned over to a string quartet of skilled local pros: Miwako Watanabe and Connie Kupka (violin), Roland Kato (viola) and David Speltz (cello).

Commission No. 56 was a freewheeling, three-movement, 23-minute String Quartet No. 2 from the pen of Kathryn Mishell, a Los Angeles expatriate who has been living and teaching in Austin, Texas, since 1972.

Mishell likes to confound expectations, steering the dissonant fugue of the opening movement toward compassionate lyricism before heading back into a storm, or having the lovely Romanticized rhetoric of the slow movement turn bleak with a shivering wind of tremolos. The coda might be too pat a resolution for all of the piece’s mood swings (one of which seemed to anticipate the Ravel Quartet in F after intermission), but the journey to that point gave the quartet a good, satisfying workout.

For whatever reasons--not the least of which may have been a pair of malfunctioning spotlights that visibly distracted some of the players--the opening Mozart Quartet in B flat, K. 589, did not go well, plagued by lapse in intonation and cohesive ensemble, and a lack of drive and clarity. Yet by the time the quartet had swung around to the Ravel, the musicians had hit their stride, all warmed up, the four instruments in good balance, delivering the goods with flowing gusts and swirls, and fierce combustion when needed.

* This program will repeat May 30 at 8 p.m. at the UCLA Faculty Center, 405 N. Hilgard Ave., Westwood. $20, $5 for students. (323) 660-7742.