Pop & Jazz : ‘Hollywood Dreams II’ Slips on Some Poor Song Choices

Sequels are all the rage in movies, so why not at concerts? That seemed to be the assumption when “Hollywood Dreams II,” a follow-up to last year’s program of movie music, was presented Friday and Saturday at the Hollywood Bowl.

The idea worked well enough for the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, conducted by John Mauceri, but not for Maureen McGovern, whose choice of movie songs would hardly have been less felicitous. Starting with one of Cole Porter’s most forgettable songs, “Blow Gabriel Blow,” she leaned too often on Saturday toward a Broadway, razzmatazz attitude that did less than justice to her voice.

As she revealed in “Somewhere” and “True Love,” McGovern has a pure sound and impeccable intonation, yet she wasted her talent on the likes of “Buttons and Bows” and “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” in a non-sequitur medley of movie tunes.

The orchestral balance of the evening was highly variable. Works by John Williams bookended the program, starting with the “Devil’s Theme” from “The Witches of Eastwick” and closing with the flying theme from “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”

The performance level was consistently high, doing justice to David Raksin’s superbly arranged “Laura” sequence. Bernard Herrmann was represented by a suite from “Vertigo” and by the brief, memorable shower scene from “Psycho.” Less successful were Max Steiner’s pretentious “King Kong” and the banal suite from “The Wizard of Oz.”

Ironically, one of the best pieces was “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas, sometimes thought of as Mickey Mouse music because of its inclusion in “Fantasia.” Actually it was written in 1897. One passage of rising augmented chords gave it a surprisingly contemporary cast.

Attendance was 9,684 Friday, 14,590 Saturday.