MUSIC REVIEW : GRIEG WORK IN LOCAL PREMIERE

Edvard Grieg was 24 when he completed his Symphony in C minor. Upon hearing the four-movement work played a few times, the composer ordered a recall, scribbling across the front: “Must never be performed.”

He was right.

Such stern advice, given over a century ago, didn’t prevent Bogidar Avramov and a game Beverly Hills Symphony from offering the local premiere of Grieg’s C-minor Symphony in Peters Auditorium at Beverly Hills High School on Friday.

Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with the 35-minute piece--it’s just that nothing interesting or memorable or even lyrical happens. There is much huffing and puffing here: lots of dramatic tremolos and pounding timpani, bits and pieces of melodic ideas and enough busy orchestration to keep one’s attention.

It all sounded like so much warmed-over Mendelssohn or recycled Schumann. The effortless melodic gifts of the later Grieg surface here only in frustratingly brief moments during the first two movements.

Avramov and his players gave it their all in a generally convincing reading, marred by some tentativeness in the strings. Neither the orchestra nor the modest-sized audience benefitted from the deadly dull acoustics of the dreary hall.

Similarly, the first half of the program, consisting of an overture by Weber and Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, suffered severe damage from the environment.

The Mozart piece fared best, largely because of the musical skills of the ever-dependable Yukiko Kamei and Milton Thomas. Standing upstage of Kamei, Thomas was never fully able to project his viola’s warm tones; Kamei was easily the more prominent voice. Nonetheless, the two players seemed of one mind in this spirited reading, which benefited from Avramov’s sympathetic accompaniment.

A scrappy but serviceable performance of Weber’s overture to “Euryanthe” opened the program.