The first concert celebrated the theatre's heritage by consisting entirely of film and stage music from the theatre's heyday: film music by Aaron Copland (The Red Pony) and Erich Wolfgang Korngold (the Errol Flynn Robin Hood), and overtures and suites from three George Gershwin stage shows, including Porgy and Bess. A great imaginative period event was made of the grand opening. Pseudo-Twenties news photographers greeted concertgoers at the door with raised cameras and cries of “Front page!”; the bar served free Shirley Temples; an old-style theatre usher guided guest conductor Sergiu Comissiona to the podium with her little flashlight and changed a signboard reading “Now Playing” before each work. Maestro Comissiona played along with this gallantly.

Never mind the music: how were the acoustics? A refreshing change from the damp, mildewed sound of the CPA to be sure, but also a sign of the truth of the old proverb, “Be careful what you wish for: you might get it.” In the upper balcony (demurely called the mezzanine), where I sat, the sound was bright and intense to the point of being harsh, and highly separated, with no reverb at all. Not surprising in a small house with plain plaster walls and very little carpeting. Adjustments will be made to the positioning of the orchestra shell over the course of the season, especially for the sake of the downstairs acoustics which are reported to be very spotty; but there's little that can be done about the over-brightness of the hall, not least because many of the concertgoers seem to like it that way, including the reviewer for the San Jose Mercury News. I doubt that the bright, separated sound will harm Tchaikovsky's Fifth at the October 30-31 concerts, but I fear for the mellow, blended character of Brahms's Second later in the season.

Oh yes, the music. The Symphony can rise to splendor with the right work under the right conductor – a Sibelius Second under Yasuo Shinozaki in their first year was the most stunning performance by a second-tier orchestra I've ever attended – but usually they amble along with amiable competence and not much more than that. So it was this time. Copland is the same composer whether writing for concert hall or screen, and The Red Pony Suite was lively and chipper. Korngold is very different in his concert music and his film music, and I prefer the former – conservative modernism akin to Hindemith. In his film music he invented, as much as anyone did, the Big Hollywood Sound, which doesn't always transfer well off the screen. His Robin Hood suite meandered, with clear control but not much overall direction from the podium, and the composer's tricks of orchestration designed to make his music heard through primitive movie-theater speakers, such as stiffening violin lines by adding trumpet, merely came off as brash in the concert hall.

Gershwin had the greatest native talent of any of these composers; but none of the offered works were designed to showcase his symphonic abilities, which were still only emerging when he died in 1937. Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture was arranged by master Broadway orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett after Gershwin's death, placing nuggets of Gershwin tunes in a rhapsodic soup. The way a recognizable tune would emerge occasionally, like a whale surfacing in the distance, brought home how Gershwin didn't really write long melodies but preferred catchy extended motifs, around which he would build his songs.

Much the same could be said for the two overtures, to Funny Face and Girl Crazy. Following customary Broadway practice, these were also probably compiled from Gershwin's tunes by others rather than being written by the composer himself, though I don't know that for sure.

Overall, the concert showed promise, and I'm looking forward to hearing what the Symphony can do in the California Theatre on a diet of heavier classics.