Theater/Classical Music

Guest conductor Andrew Grams left no note untouched at Saturday night's Riverside County Philharmonic concert as he directed two massive and massively difficult works, Brahms' Double Concerto for Violin and Cello, and Mahler's Symphony No. 1.

With meticulous attention to every musical detail, Grams became the visual expression of the music he conducted.

With distinguished soloists Michelle Kim on violin and Ron Leonard on cello for the Brahms, Grams and the orchestra delivered a brainy yet lushly romantic and expressive performance.

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Paul Alvarez / The Press-Enterprise

Guest conductor Andrew Grams leads the Riverside County Philharmonic on Saturday in Riverside.

Grams tightly held the orchestra hushed behind the soloists, a huge benefit to the audience who seemed to struggle to hear Leonard, especially, and the strings kept an elegant, confident lightness throughout the complex and complicated work.

The synergy between Kim and Leonard, long-time musical collaborators, provided the real joy of this piece, as they played off each other, melding their sounds into one, leaning into each other's playing.

The music is wickedly difficult to play with extreme technical demands practically from the first measure -- double stops, awkward leaps, and a seemingly infinite number of notes to play -- definitely not for the faint of heart.

Extraordinary as they are, both performed with complete technical mastery and elegant artistry, and treated the audience to true delight.

Mahler's Symphony No. 1 required as many musicians as the Riverside Municipal Auditorium stage would hold, including two timpani and eight horns.

In fact, the horn section looked like that of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but, alas, didn't sound like it.

The inconsistent performance -- sometimes pure and clear, sometimes mushy and muddled, often uncertain on the high notes -- dampened the brilliance of the orchestra's work.

Except for the horns' errant notes, Grams proved himself to be completely in charge of the orchestra and the audience.

After just a couple of measures at the start of the slow and mostly quiet and mysterious 3rd movement, Grams paused to wait out an annoying car alarm horn sounding from the street. Sensing it might take a while, he turned to the audience to say, "Don't pay any attention to that," and went about his work.

From the breathtaking hushed notes of the strings at the opening to the grand explosions of sound in the final movement, Grams conducted every detail and showed off the orchestra's capability to shift attitudes, create huge contrasts in tempi and dynamics, and ooze drama.

In the 4th movement, he held the orchestra so hushed their sound was almost lost in all the peripheral noise in the hall.

Then, it was goose-bump time with the orchestra launching into the finale as the spectacularly clear trumpets and the completely committed percussionists drove the orchestra with tremendous excitement.

Whether the Riverside County Philharmonic taps Grams to become the music director, he may not want to come here because of the street noise, the creaky wooden floor under the feet of all the late comers after intermission, the persistent noise from some mechanical fan in the balcony, and the audience's collective insistence on applauding between movements.

But one can hope.