East joins West in Pasadena

Much has been made of the process by which the West has been meeting the East musically, especially with the recent crop of Chinese emigre composers among whom Tan Dun is prominent. Part of that convergence involves recognizing similarities between supposedly disparate worlds, as heard in the Pasadena Symphony’s inspired performance of the composer’s Concerto for String Orchestra and Pipa, on Saturday at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

Aside from the experience of that centerpiece, its natural fit in a surrounding program of Kodaly, Debussy and Haydn emphasized the familial links along the East-West trail. Tan Dun’s 1999 concerto literally bridges cultures by blending the 2,000-year-old, lute-like pipa with a sizable string ensemble, with elements of glissando and pentatonic scale activities that could simultaneously evoke Copland, bluegrass and traditional Chinese music, without apology or stretching.

Gao Hong was a captivating presence on pipa who spoke of the instrument’s history and demonstrated its surprising range of sonic effects before the performance. At once stately and primal, the pipa is a small, shallow instrument with a hidden cache of expressive power.

A revision and expansion of the composer’s semiritualistic “Ghost Opera,” the concerto begins with a hearty collective stomp of the feet. The first two movements move with rhythmic vitality and pentatonic clarity, broadening out into a rueful, almost Barber-esque harmonic bent in its adagio. After a final movement of growing, swarming dissonant intensity, it ends with a vocal “yow!” in the ranks, after which the pipa issues a final melodic sigh of yearning sweetness.

Tan Dun’s abiding sense of emotionally coded sonic color, which served him well in his score for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” effectively lines the way here.

Under Jorge Mester’s sure lead, the symphony was in sharp form in a program of musical energy and minimal dramatic tension. They gave persuasive readings of Kodaly’s wistful “Dances of Galanta”; Debussy’s “Petit Suite,” all innocence and sensuous play of color; and Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 in G, “Military,” in which the deposits of wit, decorum and surprise related back to the Tan Dun piece.