Tchaikovsky Program at Pasadena Civic Auditorium

On Saturday night, Rostropovich led the National Symphony in a Tchaikovsky program at Pasadena Civic Auditorium. On balance, the results gratified the thinking listener, without sacrificing any of the requisite passion and sentiment one expects in this music.

Revealing a deliberate and thoughtful reading of the Piano Concerto No. 1, Alexander Toradze displayed a wide range of articulation and tone quality: powerful and bright in the opening movement, limpid in the second and fiery in the Allegro con fuoco finale. Negotiating even the most treacherous octave runs with rarely a blur, Toradze’s technical command affords him the luxury of de-emphasizing the purely virtuosic aspects of the work in favor of artistic considerations.

Rostropovich’s conducting of the Fifth Symphony continued along a similar interpretive path. Only in the Andante cantabile did the director lean toward a more heart-on-sleeve approach. But in the outer movements the tempos and transitions were persuasively gauged, while the third movement Waltz possessed a soothing lilt. Throughout the work the combination of expert playing from the first-chair members, and a collective sound that never turned strident even in the largest climaxes, was alluring.

The evening began with an appropriately virile reading of the “Coronation March” (1883), and concluded with two encores: a sassily played “Promenade” by Gershwin, and a vibrant and explosive Overture to “Russlan and Ludmilla” by Glinka.