Music Reviews : Wagner Chorale With Japan Philharmonic at Pavilion

On a good night, the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra of Los Angeles, now in its 18th season, can make you forget it’s a minor-league ensemble that plays the big-time Dorothy Chandler Pavilion just once a year.

Monday was not a good night.

Conductor Akira Kikukawa started with a sluggish, imprecise reading of the Overture to Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus” and finished with a rugged, coarse-grained approximation of Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony.

Kikukawa showed little imagination or insight into the Dvorak score, and despite some gentle, lyrical playing from the cello section, the orchestra had problems with cohesiveness and attacks.

The first part of the program had additional problems.

An amplified Roger Wagner Chorale, singing in French, strangely accented English and even Japanese, delivered an unrelated selection of songs from various countries.

Some songs that were listed in the program were deleted without explanation and others were given out of order. Momentary confusion occurred when choir and conductor differed as to which selection would be next.

Amplification made the 20-member chorale sound oddly balanced, top-heavy and disembodied. But, as far as one could tell, the ensemble sang with purity, lightness and focus.

Kikukawa invited Wagner, the grand old man of Los Angeles choral music, to conduct the final piece himself--his own arrangement of “America the Beautiful.”

Wagner took the occasion also to lead the chorale in “Coming Through the Rye” as an encore and then, without much prompting, “Danny Boy” as a second encore. Wagner acknowledged the applause, but Kikukawa, who had conducted most of the music to that point, was nowhere to be seen.