MUSIC REVIEWS : ST. MARTIN ENSEMBLE PLAYS IN PASADENA

The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, which opened a three-concert stand at Ambassador Auditorium, Pasadena, on Tuesday, remains one of the world’s great string orchestras, a marvel of balance, polish and vitality.

The interpretations of the 16-member ensemble (15 strings plus harpsichord), directed by Iona Brown from her first violinist’s chair, nonetheless proved somewhat disconcerting in the two Baroque works on the program.

What may 20 years ago have sounded like stylishly lean accounts of Handel’s Concerto Grosso in G, Opus 6, No. 1, and Vivaldi’s Concerto in G minor from “La Cetra” seemed positively Romantic on this occasion. The most obvious anachronisms were the strings’ liberal and unvarying applications of vibrato and legato--including Brown’s elegantly commanding solo work in the Vivaldi--and a lushly varied dynamic scheme.

The Academy’s interpretations have, unlike our ears, changed little over the years. To which these artists might respond with the suggestion that if we want echt- Baroque, we should go to the period-instrument specialists; for beautiful sounds, we should stay right where we are, with the Academy. They’d have a point.

The chamber-symphony arrangement (by Rudolf Barshai) of the Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 (1960) provided a grand showpiece for the orchestra. Still, the music itself is no more enticing when played by 15 strings than by four.

Shostakovich’s obsession with hangdog, uncontrasted minor tonalities, motor-rhythmic sawing, abrasive harmonies and sour parodies of banal melodies comprises a tired, dated aesthetic, made no more compelling by the composer’s dedication of his work to “victims of war and fascism.”

Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence,” originally for string sextet, concluded the program in an uncredited arrangement for string orchestra.

In either guise, it remains a very pretty piece, a few pages of padding and noodling notwithstanding. And the Academy played it with tremendous verve and virtuosity, the velvet viola of Stephen Shingles and creamy cello of Timothy Hugh providing particular pleasure in their solo moments.

Encores: an excerpt from Peter Warlock’s “Capriol” Suite and the final movement of a Mozart divertimento.