MUSIC REVIEW : Princeton Orchestra at Royce Hall

Princeton is not a name that immediately comes to mind when one thinks of the nation’s leading music schools. So it was with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension that one approached the California debut of the Princeton University Orchestra at Royce Hall Tuesday night.

As it turned out, the orchestra, which can trace its lineage back to the 1890s, is largely populated by non-music majors, and thus is a reflection not so much of the music school as it is of the rest of the university, which apparently considers music an important enough ingredient in a liberal education to warrant such an ensemble and tour.

Tuesday’s performance was sponsored partly by the local chapter of the Princeton Alumni Assn. Certainly more admirable than a tailgate party.

Led by conductor Michael Pratt, the 74-member ensemble proved a well-rehearsed and responsive group, notable more perhaps for the conviction of its playing than for its polish, but able to get the gist of the German program across forcefully.

What one missed most when listening to the orchestra was warmth of tone and subtlety of timbre, qualities difficult to attain for part-time musicians. Individual execution and ensemble playing, however, were at impressive levels.

Pratt and orchestra opened with a carefully sculpted, dynamically sensitive reading of Weber’s Overture to “Der Freischutz” and concluded the first half with a scrappy (the woodwinds seemed especially taxed) but arching account of the Prelude and “Liebestod” from Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.”

In between, soprano Martha Elliott, a Princeton and Juilliard alumna, revealed a light and agile voice, warmly focused up top, in graceful readings of four songs by Richard Strauss, including “Morgen” and “‘Standchen.”

A spirited and dramatically projected account of Schumann’s “Rhenish” Symphony concluded the event.