MUSIC REVIEW : Symphony Scores With Yule Concerts

Over the weekend the San Diego Symphony presented a pair of concerts designed to lure the locals out of the shopping malls long enough to savor a decidedly less mercantile facet of holiday spirit. In terms of audience size, Friday night’s program, Handel’s “Messiah” with the San Diego Master Chorale, proved to be the star attraction. Under the lithe and lively baton of guest conductor Michael Palmer, both orchestra and chorus acquitted themselves admirably.

Palmer purged “Messiah” of the lugubrious 19th-Century piety with which it is traditionally mounted and infused it with dramatic urgency. Soprano Young Mi Kim and tenor Carroll Freeman followed the conductor’s lead, singing their arias with operatic abandon--something Handel surely intended--and applying generous portions of delectable Baroque ornamentation. Depending on the character of each solo, Freeman ranged from bold, full-voiced declamatory style to subtle vocal colorations. In decidedly less accomplished performances, mezzo soprano Martha Jane Weaver and bass-baritone Peter Atherton tended their solo duties.

In spite of Palmer’s dizzying chorus tempos, the Master Chorale performed with articulate diction, well-disciplined ensemble, and no small level of enthusiasm for this overly familiar choral opus. While this “Messiah” was hardly a complete or definitive version, the conductor compressed as much of the oratorio into 2 1/2 hours as one might hope to hear.

The last time Palmer conducted the local symphony was January, 1983. Since then his technique had matured admirably, and, not surprisingly, he has just been appointed music director designate of the New Haven Symphony.

For those who missed the weekend performances of “Messiah,” it was taped for broadcast locally on KVSD-TV (Channel 39) on Dec. 24 at 6p.m. and Dec. 25 at 3p.m.

While “Messiah” drew the crowds, it was Saturday night’s performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony conducted by Jahja Ling that turned out to be the unexpected musical revelation. In order to present these two programs, the orchestra had been divided in half, which meant that the Beethoven symphony was played by a mere 36 players. Ling knew precisely what he wanted from this chamber orchestra, however: a clean, transparent sound and an ebullient enthusiasm for the composer’s every musical idea.

It was a refreshing look at a Beethoven symphony that only rarely catches fire. In spite of the modest number of players, the fortes were full and invigorating, and the softer passages displayed a luminous delicacy, thanks to the efforts of the first-chair woodwinds. Ling, who used no score, gave the appearance of a fussy conductor, using large, angular motions and cuing myriad details. Fortunately, there was nothing fussy about the heavenly music he coaxed from the players. This was a Beethoven Fourth to remember.

The opening half of Saturday’s Symphony Hall concert was devoted to Bach’s Second and Fifth Brandenburg Concertos. While Ling revealed only a modest sympathy for Baroque idiom, the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto made a solid impression thanks to principal flutist Damian Bursill-Hall’s stylish playing and guest harpsichordist Jennifer Paul’s assertive, rhythmic keyboard contribution, even though her first-movement cadenza sounded unnecessarily agitated. Concertmaster Igor Gruppman, the other concerto soloist, equalled his colleagues’ finesse only in the haunting middle movement.

The memory of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s elegant and refined Second Brandenburg Concerto heard locally earlier this month put the symphony players at some disadvantage. While principal trumpet Calvin Price surmounted the work’s daunting challenges, he made it sound more like a trumpet concerto than a concerto grosso with four equal soloists. This graceful balance among the solo players was only one of LACO’s many interpretive virtues. Perhaps if Price and the other three soloists--Gruppman, Bursill-Hall, and principal oboist Elizabeth Green--had been standing rather than sitting, the solo ensemble might have sounded more balanced in the hall.