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MUSIC REVIEW : Carl St. Clair Returns to Lead Pacific Symphony : The three-part program at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Wednesday included the music of Brahms, Prokofiev and Oliver Knussen.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Pacific Symphony ratcheted forward a few notches in impressive ensemble work on Wednesday as music director Carl St. Clair led the orchestra for the first time since November.

The group, particularly the strings, sounded strong and unified in a three-part program that included music of Brahms, Prokofiev and Oliver Knussen at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

While St. Clair still invokes gestures that generate no discernible results, the players nonetheless all tended to do the same thing the same way, thus laying the groundwork for what one hopes will be later demonstrations of the conductor’s insights into the music.

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Not that the start of the program was all that promising when he led a concert version of an orchestral interlude, entitled “The Way to Castle Yonder,” from Knussen’s opera, “Higglety Pigglety Pop!”

Despite transparent textures in this brief but varied impressionistic excerpt, the orchestra somehow also managed to sound unfocused. One also had to wonder why the Pacific strings tend to seem so consistently edgy in that hall.

St. Clair unveiled a granite and grim-faced Brahms in that composer’s Symphony No. 1. But the score can accommodate that approach, even though it contains greater degrees of stoicism, conflict and triumph than were heard.

Still, despite some smeared details and over-energetic percussion, St. Clair led a solid, respectable account, with emphasis on broad perspective and taut muscularity.

Of the prominent soloists, clarinetist James Kanter played with unfailingly tender and sensitive phrasing, concertmaster Endre Granat with lyric sweetness and hornist James Thatcher with warmth and strength.

The midpoint offering was Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with Yefim Bronfman as soloist.

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Playing the same work last August with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (led by Marek Janowski) at the Hollywood Bowl, Bronfman reportedly demonstrated crackling energy and elan, and even introduced some bluesy inflections into one of the variations in the second movement.

Not much of that was apparent in Segerstrom Hall, however, whether because of a dullish piano, inefficient balance with the orchestra, problematic acoustics in the hall or an altogether different approach to the music.

Bronfman played with buttery, even tone and fluent virtuosity in this finger-twisting showcase. But neither he nor the attentive and alert St. Clair emphasized many of the contrasts in the music or explored its elements of bitter wit or sarcasm.

Everything sounded smooth and pearly and rounded off, although they did end the piece with firecracker precision.

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