Tokyo City Philharmonic speaks in many languages

There are nine professional symphony orchestras in Tokyo. The most famous is the NHK Symphony, which regularly tours the United States and has a long, illustrious history. The youngest, the not yet 30-year-old Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra, made its first appearance in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon.

The Pacific Coast Music Festival 2004 brought the orchestra to the Japan America Theatre for a concert led by principal guest conductor Hikotaro Yazaki, who the program stated is a bit of a Francophile. So it was fitting that he led things off with some pleasing French music, courtesy of Francis Poulenc.

Poulenc’s playful “Les Biches” Suite was an effective curtain-raiser, but one wished that the band had had a bit more fun with it. The tempos were rigid and the phrasing too sober, suggesting that a few sips of wine beforehand might have helped the players get into a more Parisian mood.

One could have no quibbles, though, about the next piece, Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. Yazaki and violinist Anne Akiko Meyers made a very strong case for this emotional work, a virtuoso example of Barber’s lush lyricism but one that also contains more dissonance than the decidedly tonal composer usually wrote. Many of his more neo-Romantic works have not aged well, but more renditions like Meyers’ could earn the concerto a standing closer to his more famous compositions.

Meyers’ playing was bold yet never showoffy, tender but not sentimental. She closed the second movement with a long, beautifully held note that quivered ever so faintly. If only the audience had let the moment linger rather than rushing to applaud (which it did between every movement of every piece).

Brahms’ Second Symphony rounded out the program. As in the other pieces, the strings performed expertly, creating a crisp and unified sound, while the other sections were a little sloppier. The players always had oomph in the Brahms, but they never quite nailed the waltzy, Viennese rhythms or found the score’s deeper emotions.

Two encores closed the afternoon in a more rousing fashion: “Hana,” a short piece by the 19th century Japanese composer Rentaro Taki, and John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Of course, everyone clapped in unison, proving that Sousa’s marches, whether played by a high school marching band or a Japanese orchestra, never get lost in translation.