Steiner Compels in Classical Portions

The Chamber Orchestra of the South Bay offered late Classical and early Romantic works Sunday night at the Norris Theatre in Palos Verdes, but Francis Steiner, the ensemble’s music director, clearly found the Classical aspect of the program most compelling. Whether conducting Beethoven’s “Prometheus” Overture or Weber’s Konzertstuck for Piano and Orchestra, she steered her band toward the tight, vibrant ensemble with little sentimentality and a no-nonsense emphasis on clarity of line and balance between sections.

Although the violins sometimes waxed thin, her efforts generally bore success. The group’s reading of Schubert’s Symphony No. 2 profited from Steiner’s focus in its homogeneous blend, youthful energy and conciseness, and was further enlivened by sprightly solos played by principal oboist Malinda Kreiser.

In Beethoven’s Romance No. 2, concertmaster Miwako Watanabe painted graceful phrases with communicative thoughtfulness, often brought to fruition by her colleagues’ like-minded continuation of ideas.

The Romance was followed by Weber’s rarely programmed--and deservedly so--Konzertstuck, with Korean-born pianist Jungran Khwarg as protagonist. Despite affording glimpses into evolving styles and sporting a modicum of folksy charm, the single-movement concerto holds only slightly more musical merit than a Czerny etude. Nevertheless, it gave Khwarg, who now lives locally, abundant opportunities to demonstrate security in snappy passage work and bouncy octave sections, all of which she dispatched with apparent ease.