A concerto in the tradition of Copland

With his Concerto for Chamber Orchestra, Peter Schickele carves out a musical geography of America, much like Aaron Copland did. Copland portrayed a mythic wilderness of pioneers, outlaws and limitless space. Schickele picks the Southwest and a later time. But he also captures the energy and optimism that add to Walt Whitman’s American yelp.

Jorge Mester and the Pasadena Symphony gave the West Coast premiere of the work as part of a three-part program Saturday at Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Schickele was on hand to accept the enthusiastic applause the concerto received. He’d given the preconcert lecture, where he was peppered with questions about his musical alter ego, the fictitious, hilarious P.D.Q. Bach. Hardly anyone asked about his serious music.

Pity because the Concerto has immediate appeal and staying power. Schickele wrote it in 1998 for Ramson Wilson and the OK Mozart Festival in Bartlesville, Okla., where it was premiered that year. The work runs about 30 minutes and falls into a traditional four-movement pattern, with the first and second movement linked.

It opens with a fanfare and goes like blazes from there. The writing is agile and beautifully proportioned with lots of solos for individuals as well as whole sections. The piece carries on the Copland tradition, but adds the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, a little more jazz, other national ethnic influences. It is familiar but new. It never sounds forced, faked or condescending. It’s a winner.

Howard Shelley was the powerful soloist in Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” gobbling up octaves as if they were easy finger exercises but also keeping us involved in all the sections, rather than just waiting for the big tune. Mester led skillfully and sympathetically.

He closed the program with a magisterial account of Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony, revealing its proper stature partly by his pacing and partly by taking all the repeats.