Mehta mood swings

And now there’s Nuvi, the next Mehta.

Cousin of Zubin, son of pianist Dady, brother of countertenor Bejun, the youngest member of the Mehta musical dynasty has been making a name for himself in the San Diego area as a violinist (he performs in the San Diego Symphony), conductor, stage director, educator and even occasional performer in musical comedy. He is also music director of two regional orchestras (the Nova Vista Symphony in Sunnyvale, Calif., and the Marquette Symphony in Michigan); this year, Mehta also became artistic director of the Ventura Music Festival. For the closing evening concert Saturday of the festival’s 10th season, he led the Festival Orchestra in a program of mostly midcentury American music at Ventura Missionary Church.

Mehta is unquestionably a Mehta -- he has the family good looks, self-possession and talent. In fact, with a slight resemblance to a young Gary Cooper, he could become the most glamorous of them all. His old-fashioned Hollywood charisma extends to an eloquent and theatrical way of speaking to the audience that is almost entirely lost today. Although slightly over the top, Mehta actually brought more drama to his reading of the program note by Miguel del Aguila, whose “The Achievement of Happiness” was commissioned by the festival, than existed in the music. This time I thought a young Orson Welles. His easy sense of humor won me over as well.

Yet for all his gifts, Mehta had a rough night of it. The scrappy string orchestra was inadequate, and Mehta had devised a pleasant program of contrapuntal music that frequently left individual sections mercilessly exposed. The intimacy and the glaring, hard-edged acoustics of the church, along with the conductor’s overeager urgings for a big sound, made matters only worse.

Mehta’s first miscalculation was beginning with Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Our unofficial national music of mourning, it sent a double signal of death by opening a concert in a church setting. Although no memorial was intended, Mehta nonetheless set a somber tone by working up to a gargantuan climax.

Then, he attempted to undo it with one of Barber’s snappier pieces, the “Capricorn Concerto,” followed by an appearance of Triple Play, the jazz group. Fortunately, Mehta selected soloists who gave the concert much of its vitality. In Barber’s “Capricorn,” they were Janice Tipton (flute), Allan Vogel (oboe) and Calvin Price (trumpet) -- who returned in the end for Del Aguila’s premiere.

But in upbeat music, the string orchestra was at its most insecure, and too often these three fine wind players overcompensated. Triple Play, which was rollicking good fun in Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo” and “Take 5,” was yet another miscalculation. Led by bassist, trombonist and pianist Chris Brubeck (Dave’s son), the trio stole the show not only with its flair and virtuosity, but also because lively jazz -- even though a perfectly appropriate contribution to the evening’s theme of midcentury contrapuntal music -- often does in these kinds of programs. Brubeck also offered the easygoing slow movement from his Trombone Concerto.

After intermission, the strings struggled through David Diamond’s “Rounds” and Aaron Copland’s “Quiet City,” in which Price proved an overbearing trumpet soloist but Vogel compensated as the elegantly lyric English horn soloist. Copland asks for restraint; Mehta asked for bombast.

It was nice, though, to hear Mehta then read aloud Del Aguila’s long program note and give a tongue-in-cheek quality to the composer’s remark that he knows exactly how to achieve happiness in music. It would be quite something if he did, and certainly, “The Achievement of Happiness” does nothing of the sort.

An agreeable -- if slight -- piece, it rapidly progresses from gloom to sunshine in 10 minutes, with the help of a tango tune that turns into merry-go-round music. The ending is slapstick. Once more, the strings came to unhappiness, but the three engaging wind soloists (with Vogel again playing English horn) saved the day, and Mehta here proved himself a versatile and convincing mood swinger.