Getting Down to the Basics : Music: San Diego Symphony’s new music director clearly has music as his top priority, but he also realizes he must boost attendance and tackle other non-musical duties.

Last weekend, the local music community toasted Yoav Talmi as he launched both the San Diego Symphony’s 1990-91 season and his tenure as the orchestra’s new music director. By Monday morning, however, the inaugural party was clearly over, and the 47-year-old Israeli maestro was facing the sobering realities of his new post.

“I’m afraid to say, that once I come here, I invest more time doing the social, non-musical activities than I do really studying the (musical) scores,” he said over a cup of herbal tea. On a day without performances or rehearsals, Talmi received visitors in his modestly refurbished office backstage at Copley Symphony Hall.

“I spend my time meeting with committees and board members, talking to the auxiliaries and the press, and conferring with the executive committee of the board of directors.”

Carrying out the public relations aspect of his new post is not the priority closest to Talmi’s heart. A scholarly, soft-spoken musician who chooses his words meticulously, Talmi is not likely to win a medal for schmoozing. But the fragile state of the local orchestra and its need to raise money and increase its audience size set Talmi’s priorities.

“I am a musician first of all, so my main task is to work with the orchestra itself. The success of the orchestra, however, will be once we are able to increase considerably the attendance of the public. Up to now, we have had an average of 60% attendance in the concert hall, which is not bad--but it is not really good. We need to justify the existence of the orchestra in such a big city. For that I will involve myself as much as I can to encourage people to come.”

Although Talmi is no stranger to the San Diego Symphony podium, the man behind the baton is still an unknown quantity. The conductor from Tel Aviv made his local debut as a guest conductor in December, 1987, and was appointed music director designate in April, 1989. Because of the local orchestra’s financial crises of 1986, it was without a permanent music director from February, 1987, when former music director David Atherton resigned, until Talmi began his three-year contract Oct. 1, 1990.

To conduct in concert without relying on the score, Talmi prefers to memorize his music. This trait is symptomatic of the rigorous discipline he requires of himself.

“I don’t require a lot of sleep. When I come to San Diego, I get five hours of sleep. I get up early in the morning to go over my scores for the rehearsal, putting all the things back in my head that I need to re-memorize. But I’m just reviewing the music because I did the real work before coming here.”

Talmi’s musical taste is decidedly mainstream, preferring Germanic fare with a few French side dishes.

“My cup of tea is the German tradition of Bruckner and Mahler; then come the Romantics--Schumann, Brahms, and Dvorak--and of course Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn. I do love the French repertory, too, because of my mentor Jean Morel at Juilliard, who brought me to this repertory.”

Most of this music is already familiar to San Diego’s unadventurous audiences, but Bruckner and Mahler have not had much local exposure. Because Atherton had a strong aversion to Bruckner, only a single Bruckner symphony was heard here during the Briton’s six-year tenure on the podium. So Talmi has inaugurated Bruckner and Mahler cycles that each season will bring one major work by both of these late-Romantic Austrian composers.

“I have already conducted Mahler’s First Symphony and Fifth Symphony here. Later this year we will do his Second Symphony. Next season we’ll play the Fourth Symphony, in the 1992-93 season we’ll do ‘Das Lied von der Erde,’ which I know has not been done here in a very long time.”

Next month Talmi conducts Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, and he has promised a performance of the Ninth Symphony next year. Talmi’s recording of the Bruckner Ninth with the Oslo Philharmonic for Chandos Records won the coveted French Grand Prix du Disque award several years ago.

Talmi is eager--almost anxious considering his customary sangfroid --to prove his orchestra and build its credibility through recordings.

“The most important thing for the orchestra right now is recording. It is the one thing that will testify to their ability. If the local band records and people can buy the recordings here in record shops, ‘Well,’ they say, ‘if they record, they must be good!’ ”

In spite of the apparent circularity of such arguments, recordings and touring were the keys to Talmi’s success as music director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra from 1984-88. Talmi’s first recording project with the San Diego Symphony will be Reinhold Gliere’s Third Symphony, which will be recorded in May, 1991, for Pro Arte.

The recording company’s choice of an obscure opus--some say deservedly so--that has rarely been recorded for this inaugural project disappointed Talmi, who had Mahler and Prokofiev on the top of his wish list.

“I was reluctant to touch the Gliere,” he said. “I did not know this particular symphony, so they sent me an old recording by (the late Eugene) Ormandy.”

After studying the Gliere score in depth, Talmi is convinced that its brilliant Romantic idiom will flatter the orchestra’s strong points, the brass and wind sections. His description of the work as “a great work not consistent from the beginning to the end,” however, betrays a certain chagrin at being denied his first choice in the selection. He is still negotiating with Pro Arte on the repertory choice for next year’s record project.

In addition to recording, Talmi sees touring as the orchestra’s next major challenge. He would start with a West Coast tour that would present the San Diego Symphony in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“Eventually, the orchestra should go to Carnegie Hall. This needs a lot of sponsoring and a lot of money, of course. For the moment, none has shown up. I think that unless we dream, we’ll never be able to reach what we really want to do.”

Perhaps sensing that his projections had become overly speculative, he quickly put things into pragmatic perspective.

“Allow me to dream about these things, but I do not just dream. I am a very practical man, and I work hard at these things.”