MUSIC REVIEW : Talmi Shows Skill at Trying Concert

Now that Yoav Talmi is about to take over the long-vacant helm of the San Diego Symphony, he appears eager to flesh out his identity on the podium. Aspiring music directors are ever eager to please, but Talmi is beyond the stage of putting his best foot forward.

Friday night at Copley Symphony Hall, Talmi bounded on stage to dazzle his ample audience with a rousing--almost raucous--rendition of Smetana’s Overture and “Dance of the Comedians” from his opera “The Bartered Bride.” The usually mild-mannered Israeli conductor made a point of saber rattling with a pair of light-hearted works that readily respond to that approach, although Talmi’s breakneck tempo pushed the orchestra just beyond its ability to maintain a tight ensemble.

In the Prokofiev First violin Concerto, however, the maestro’s task was not as simple. The mercurial, asymmetrical Concerto is elusive under the best conditions, and Talmi had to cope with a soloist who did not appear to have the work confidently in his fingers. The symphony drafted American violinist Mark Kaplan late Monday after the scheduled violinist Nigel Kennedy canceled due to illness.

Kaplan started with a sterling, well-focused sound and graceful line, but the formidable technical demands of the Scherzo kept the soloist scrambling for notes. To his credit, Talmi stayed with Kaplan and coaxed a sympathetic response from the orchestra. But the Concerto’s abundant humor and tongue-in-cheek parody of concerto conventions rarely emerged from this overly earnest endeavor.

There probably is not much more that can be added to the interpretive lore of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony (“Pathetique”), but this hoary relic remains sacred to a certain stripe of orchestra aficionado. Talmi preferred to err on the side of calm elegance, and he demonstrated that he knows how to let out all the stops without destroying the work’s basic contours. The Symphony proved to be the orchestra’s finest hour of the evening, especially in the waltzing second movement. Only the finale “Adagio lamentoso” lacked the pathos that is usually the work’s emotional talisman.