Music Reviews : Santa Monica Symphony

The Los Angeles musical landscape is dotted with dozens of community orchestras, like duchies in a symphonic kingdom. The Santa Monica Symphony, founded in 1945, is one of the better of these groups, and Sunday night it opened its four-concert season at Barnum Hall, Santa Monica High School.

Patrick Flynn, music director of the Riverside County Philharmonic, was the evening’s guest conductor, the first of four this year as the orchestra searches for a new music director.

He opened the concert with a spirited account of Bernstein’s Overture to “Candide.” What the orchestra lacked in polish it made up for in raw-edged rambunctiousness. The strings were scratchy at times but generally well articulated and rhythmically alert; the brass and woodwinds were crisp and boisterous.

Then Gary Gray, principal clarinetist with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, joined the orchestra for Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 2. He proved a lively soloist, technically at ease and affectionately shaping the singing lines. His playing of the second movement Romanze had particular beauty, with single-breathed phrasing and hushed legato. The orchestra was assiduous and energetic in accompaniment.

The concert concluded with Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, in a purposeful, propulsive performance. Again, there were a few lapses in execution, some sloppy string work, a bumbled horn line. But despite these rough edges, the musical essence of the score came across.

Flynn is an animated and attentive conductor, and never let the musical line sag. He cared about details in phrasing, dynamics and balances. The orchestra responded smartly, with aggressive, no-apologies string playing, solid woodwind solos and keen brass interjections.