MUSIC REVIEW : Pavel Haas’ Study Bolsters Boston Symphony Program

It has been 10 long years since Seiji Ozawa and the mighty Boston Symphony Orchestra last visited the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Then, armed with a bold and difficult program (Maxwell Davies’ then-new Symphony No. 2 and Stravinsky’s “Sacre”), the BSO played like a world-class virtuoso orchestra of our dreams.

Wednesday night, a decade later--same hall, same conductor--the BSO sounded strangely mortal, distressingly so, in the second of its two programs here. However, there was a welcome touch of the old programming enterprise in the form of Pavel Haas’ Study For String Orchestra.

Thankfully, one doesn’t have to make allowances for the horrible conditions under which Haas worked at the Terezin concentration camp. This is a sturdy, unified, engaging piece of work, wrapped in a concise, 8-minutes, 20-seconds package.

One can hear echoes of Haas’ teacher Janacek in the rapid, insistently repetitive triplets of the opening, and the dense harmonies and fugal writing bring to mind the wartime Symphony No. 2 of Arthur Honegger.

Even in the relaxed middle section, tension grips the lyrical line, and lovely folk-like passages can be heard as the work speeds to its conclusion. Unlike other Terezin pieces that have been performed recently, this one does not have a wandering attention span; it stays focused throughout--which, under the circumstances, was a miraculous achievement.

This was not the Study’s first local performance; Nick Strimple and his Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church Orchestra apparently scooped everyone a year ago by giving the North American premiere. And while one enjoyed the suave, dark Boston string tone, the piece probably could have used more cutting thrust than Ozawa seemed able to summon.

In Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante in B-flat, Ozawa favored an unabashedly plush-textured approach, which will not endear him to the period practices crowd. Yet he did a fine job of balancing his characterful soloists--violinist Malcolm Lowe, cellist Jules Eskin, oboist Alfred Genovese, bassoonist Richard Svoboda--in a natural, audible sonic plane with the orchestra.

Except for an opulently singing second movement and a satisfying dramatic crunch at the crux of the finale, Ozawa’s safe, ultra-legato, middle-of-the-road Brahms Symphony No. 1 had little to distinguish it from numerous other Brahms Firsts out there. And one was surprised to hear so many episodes of lax string execution and blaring, untidy brass work.

Perhaps this indicates that the fatigue of touring can catch up with even the best. In any case, the ghosts of Serge Koussevitzky and Charles Munch would not have been pleased.