MUSIC REVIEW : Geoffrey Simon Conducts Pacific Symphony

Albany Symphony music director Geoffrey Simon got a rare endorsement from one of the best sources possible at the end of his program Wednesday with the Pacific Symphony at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa: the orchestra itself.

Not only did the Pacific players applaud the visiting conductor (which you would expect), but concertmaster Endre Granat graciously refused to take Simon’s hand to share in the applause (which you wouldn’t) after Simon had led an electric, thinking man’s account of Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra.

Granat himself had shone in the lyric solo in Dvorak’s “Carnival” Overture, which opened the program. But he was not the only one. Flutist Louise DiTullio, oboist Barbara Northcutt, clarinetist James Kanter and English horn player Earle Dumler all had been expressive in solo opportunities, especially in the Bartok Concerto.

Still, it was Simon’s night.

The only conductor besides founding music director Keith Clark to have conducted the Pacific twice in classical subscription concerts, Simon confirmed the talents and expertise he demonstrated last year when on short notice he took over conducting duties originally assigned to flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal.

Simon conducted with balance, fine sense of detail and direction. He showed sensitivity to style, and purpose and intelligence in phrasing.

He brought verve and delicacy to Dvorak’s Overture; mystery, passion and spirit to Bartok’s Concerto. Rarely has Shostakovich’s poor tune quoted in the Concerto “Intermezzo interrotto” been as mocked and dismissed with such rude wit.

While the orchestra has not yet risen to all the virtuoso demands of Bartok--strings could sound thin and edgy; brass insecure--the players were often impressive and always responsive, precise, committed and determined.

Simon also conducted a muscular account of Chopin’s Concerto No. 1. However, all was not well.

Soloist Janina Fialkowska replaced the originally announced Bella Davidovich, who had been released from her contract so that she could accept an invitation to play in the Soviet Union.

For all her formidable power and technique, Fialkowska led Simon through a maze of rubatos, seeming to start each phrase anew with a different shape than the one before but without linking them together.

No one desires rigidity in Chopin, but this approach was less poetic than simply mannered. At times, the composer’s already tenuous structures virtually dissolved. The soloist could have been scarcely more indifferent to the orchestra.

Simon followed carefully, sensitively, but couldn’t always salvage whole passages that seemed to lose their center.