By Lyn Bronson

Dmitri Yablonsky

The Monterey Symphony is presenting this week a program called “Hidden Russian Treasures  featuring guest conductor Dmitri Yablonsky. This concert continues the new marketing ploy by the Monterey Symphony to organize the season into a series of concerts with clever titles (and, hopefully, attractive enough musical content) to attract new and possibly younger audiences. Admittedly, some of this season’s programs have had more substance than others, for although the season opener featuring Chris Brubeck in a tribute to Ansel Adams was virtually a sellout, subsequent programs have fared slightly less well at the box office.

The problem is that when the steak finally arrives, it has to live up to its promotional sizzle. So, the bottom line about the current set of concerts, “Hidden Russian Treasures,” is, did the program live up to its expectations? Well, when the steak finally came, it was kind of skinny and very tough – it only takes 30 satisfying minutes to chew your way through Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, but the featured work on this program, Scriabin’s Second Symphony, had us chewing away for a mind-numbing 48 minutes.

In all fairness, Yablonsky and the symphony players did their best to present an interesting view of this “Hidden Russian Treasure,”ut because it is so devoid of rhythmic interest (there is hardly a dotted rhythm anywhere) and barren melodically, it comes across as hopelessly self indulgent and perhaps deserving of going back into hiding.

The appetizer in this concert was the rarely heard Valse-Fantasie by Glinka, and its lightweight charm set us up for the following Suite No. 1 for Variety Stage Orchestra by Shostakovich. This work is a hodgepodge of dance music for symphony orchestra plus accordion, sax, piano and extra percussion – the kind of entertainment a Soviet citizen might have enjoyed in the lounge of a Black Sea cruise ship during Stalin’s times. As casual light fare it succeeded in entertaining us for approximately 25 minutes.

However, the real treasure of the afternoon was “Tahiti Trot,” again by Shostakovich. This remarkably witty and satisfying tribute to the popular song, “Tea for Two,” was so imaginative in its orchestration it couldn’t fail to tickle anyone’s funny bone.

End