CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW : Concert by S.D. Symphony Augurs Well for the Future

Charting improvements in the San Diego Symphony under the tutelage of new music director Yoav Talmi could become a pleasant pastime. Although it would be foolish to expect overnight miracles--and Talmi would be the first to dismiss such a lightheaded notion--the orchestra’s Thursday night concert at Copley Symphony Hall displayed some hopeful signs.

Haydn’s Symphony No. 96 (“The Miracle”), the program’s opening salvo, sparkled with unexpected excitement and allure. Haydn has never been a staple of the local orchestra, and when programmed, his music has sounded dutiful at best. Talmi’s approach to this paragon of classical style was animated but unhurried, relaxed yet graceful. This took some of the brittle edge off the violin sound, bringing it closer to that warm, burnished string timbre characteristic of the Viennese school. In the brisk tempos, of course, the violins tended to revert to their wonted stridency, but refurbishing this section of the orchestra is a long-term project, and every step along the way deserves encouragement.

In the Haydn, Talmi elicited a clean ensemble from the orchestra, whose size he had appropriately pared down in the lower string sections. Only the woodwinds gave the conductor precisely what he asked for in terms of deftly detailed and buoyant phrasing, but the overall result was still refreshingly stylish.

Guest violinist Zina Schiff made a stunning case for Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, mating her sweetly brilliant tone with the work’s effusive lyricism. Schiff elegantly sprinted through the concerto’s broadly arched themes with apparent ease, although her sound lacked a certain muscle when pitted against the full orchestra. If Schiff and the orchestra turned the slow movement into a passionate rhapsody, they lost some of their focus in the breakneck virtuoso requirements of the presto finale.

Talmi closed the program with Elgar’s familiar “Enigma” Variations, the sort of grandiloquent full-orchestra essay that easily showcases the symphony’s strong points. Indeed, the brass sections did not disappoint Thursday night, bringing their well-tempered majesty to bear on Elgar’s Victorian largess. Maintaining the work’s overall architecture was Talmi’s primary goal. Not one to gild the lily, Talmi found time to indulge the work’s darker moments, thoughtfully saving the musical climax for the final variation.