MUSIC REVIEW : Clark, Pennario Perform Dvorak, Grieg in Irvine

Conductor Keith Clark and soloist Leonard Pennario laid Grieg’s lyric Piano Concerto on the butcher’s block Saturday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, each carving out his own approach to the work without much regard for the other.

But Clark alone must take dubious credit for the sledgehammer applied to Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony, which closed the fourth concert of the Pacific Symphony’s five-part summer series at the outdoor venue.

The Clark-Pennario partnership got off to a shaky start even before the music began. Pennario seemed to take an inordinately long time adjusting the piano stool to his satisfaction, and Clark signaled the introductory timpani roll even before Pennario appeared settled.

From then on it was a tussle: Pennario trying to play with poetic light and shade, flexibility and airiness; Clark answering with boxy, stodgy and unlyrical straightforwardness.

The disagreements took their toll. Pennario, 64, appeared somewhat unnerved, frustrated or hemmed in by it all. He suffered some loss of fleet-fingered dexterity or else faced occasional defeat in struggling with a recalcitrant Steinway grand. At any rate, phrases that should have been seamless at times weren’t, although Pennario delivered much with virtuoso brilliance.

In the Dvorak Symphony, Clark applied relentless force and propulsion to the outer movements, hammering out obvious accents and invariably throwing on the brakes for contrasting themes.

But in the middle movements, strange things began to happen. Any sense of lyricism, repose or clarity of form was pulled apart by the conductor’s frequent, willful tempo changes, oddly accented phrasings and indulgently stretched-out lines.

Clark’s massed-climax approach tended to work best in Respighi’s “Pines of Rome,” which opened the program. Here, Clark offered a bright, energetic account with six brass players set off to the side of the stage for extra bombast.

All evening, the orchestra’s amplification system added problems. The piano, closely miked, sounded hard and brittle. The bloom and warmth was off the upper strings. Cellos and basses often could not be heard, or else sounded more like an electronic hum or boom than any definite pitch. The horn section also sounded toneless.

Attendance: 5,118.