MUSIC REVIEW : San Diego Orchestra’s Strides Apparent in Sprawling Bruckner Work

While the management and board of the San Diego Symphony has been putting its fiscal house in order this season, the orchestra has not been content merely to tread water.

Thursday night’s stirring performance of Bruckner’s Fourth (“Romantic”) Symphony, under Christof Perick, revealed a far more cohesive, sectionally balanced and brilliant ensemble than was heard at last October’s season-opening concert.

The comparison is apt because on that October program, music director designate Yoav Talmi chose another giant late Romantic tapestry--Mahler’s Fifth Symphony--to demonstrate his players’ mettle. The Bruckner Fourth Symphony marked a welcome new plateau of refinement and depth for the home team, a significant step beyond the orchestra’s earlier tentative, albeit promising, efforts in a symphonic decathlon.

Perick’s alert, meticulous direction elegantly articulated the work’s rambling architecture, and surely no one could question the West German conductor’s complete empathy for Bruckner’s unabashed, effusive idiom. From the symphony’s opening flourishes, Perick demonstrated his complete control and sang-froid.

If he chose brighter tempos than some conductors, he never emotionally shortchanged the composer’s intentions. His interpretation of the second movement was relaxed, even jaunty, but he summoned immense reserves of energy for the symphony’s many brass-bulging fanfares and climaxes.

One would hesitate, however, to call this performance definitive.

Because the acoustics of Symphony Hall favor the brass instruments, and because the orchestra is about 15 strings shy of its ideal size, the strings could not manage the proper weight to balance the brass sections. And, although the strings have focused their playing significantly over the season, their achievement did not match the brass section’s burnished brilliance. The horns and trombones were on their very best behavior all night--few scores are more taxing--and the trumpets may be forgiven for showing hints of fatigue in the fourth movement of this sprawling 65-minute work.

The evening opened less auspiciously with Jaime Laredo soloing in Mozart’s G Major Violin Concerto, K. 216. Perick launched the concerto on a light, airy note, but Laredo’s overly deliberate reading kept it earthbound. His steely timbre is not everyone’s ideal for playing Mozart, and for all his frowning intensity, he smudged over the quick notes in his modest cadenzas.

This program will be repeated Sunday in Symphony Hall at 2 p.m.; violinist Frank Almond Jr. will replace Laredo in the Mozart concerto.