By Keith Kreitman

Review

As a testimony to the musical reputation that has accrued to the California Youth Symphony in recent years, an astonishing audience of 2,000 packed Flint Center at DeAnza College in Cupertino this past weekend for this season’s opening concert. The symphony performs 2:30 p.m., Sunday, at the San Mateo Performing Arts Center.

And, why not? This orchestra of more than 100 12- to 18-year-old youths has laid claim to be the finest sounding symphony south of the San Francisco Symphony and that will get no argument from me. It is undoubtedly one of the best youth orchestras in the United States, if not the world.

For pure tonal quality it has no peer on the Peninsula. There is no orchestra with better tone, balance, dynamics, intonation and technical precision than here.

In the past, the only thing I perceived lacking in these youngsters was the maturation resulting from experience. This time they did me in on even that.

In my last review of the orchestra, I wrote, “I have come to accept that with such a collection of richly lush strings and beautifully balanced brass, woodwind and percussion section, music director Leo Eylar may fearlessly attack and challenge.”

Apparently, he took me up on that. In my view only an incredibly naive conductor would program a symphony by Gustav Mahler for a youth orchestra and, if so, only an incredibly talented conductor would be able to pull it off. Very few conductors of any adult non-professional orchestras would dare put their reputations on the line to program such works.

Well, apparently Leo Eylar, a directing clone of the late, great, Leonard Bernstein, is an incredibly talented conductor with a collection of incredibly talented kids, because he programmed

Mahler’s monumental and exhausting five movement “Symphony no. 5 in C-sharp minor,” and they pulled it off.

This was not equivalent to the efforts of any of the big seven professional symphonies in the land, maybe even not the second-tier orchestras, but there is no professional orchestra below that level that would be embarrassed by the effort.

This work took up the entire second half of the program and was so demanding of the entire orchestra that it was almost impossible to single out individual performers. But it is not possible to ignore the entire brass section upon which Mahler places such great demands in this symphony.

Simply outstanding were the principal trumpet Joseph Kim and Debbie Crane, an 18-year-old wonder on the French horn. This symphony has more French horn solos than any other in the mainline repertoire.

Hers is even more astonishing because the French horn is the Achilles heel of all but the best of orchestras. Generally, this is the last of the orchestral instruments for youngsters to master.

Having said all that, I must confess, Mahler is a little hard for a modern audience to sit through.

The opening work on the program featured Adrian Tam, the 17-year-old winner of the California Youth Symphony’s 2001 Young Artist Competition. This was a case of selecting a concerto before attaining sufficient strength and maturity.

“Piano Concerto No.2 in C Minor, Op.18,” by Serge Rachmaninov is one of the most popular in the repertoire, with melodies familiar to all through theft by Tin Pan Alley songwriters. It is a very demanding work which requires very strong hands, great confidence and a surfeit of passion.

At the opening, it seemed that the orchestra was overpowering the soloist, when, in truth, the soloist was entering rather timidly.

On the other hand, the gracefulness and elegance of his style were perfect for Allegro Sostunto of the second movement. It was the two outside movements that lacked the power.

I would give him an 8 out of 10 for achievement, but that would be just so-so for a professional effort.

On the other hand, an 8 out of 10 is darn good for a 17-year-old with the talent and potential of an Adrian Tam.