MUSIC REVIEW : Symphony Comes Alive Under Nowak

Pity the poor guest conductor. After a few rehearsals before an unfamiliar orchestra, the travel-weary maestro is expected to produce a striking, fresh performance, brightly gift-wrapped in his own unique interpretation. Pity the poor orchestra, attempting to get a read on the itinerant conductor in an equally short time.

But in his Thursday concert with the San Diego Symphony, guest conductor Grzegorz Nowak proved that art may nevertheless thrive within such limitations. On the Copley Symphony Hall podium, the animated, lanky Polish conductor brought to mind the caricatures of violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini. In three tone poems from Bedrich Smetana’s patriotic cycle “Ma Vlast” (My Fatherland), Nowak elicited a brilliance and depth from the orchestra that more than justified his showmanship.

Anyone who can restore the magic and innocent ebullience to the overplayed “Vltava” (The Moldau) deserves a Nobel Prize. Under Nowak’s impassioned direction, the orchestra’s shimmering, floating ensemble made the stately old river flow with vernal animation. Nowak captured the melodrama and rhapsodic sweep of “Sarka,” deftly building the brassy climaxes and pampering its contrasting bucolic melodies. In “Blanik,” the cycle’s apotheosis of Czech nationalism, fragments of the ancient Hussite hymn steadily gathered into a rousing chorus without a hint of bombast.

Nowak brought equal conviction to John Corigliano’s sprawling, four-movement Piano Concerto. In a symphony season adorned with few contemporary works, it is painful to disparage this 1968 opus. Alas, the work’s musical material could have filled two complete concertos, but, even with this abundance, the composer failed to create a single masterpiece.

Like Corigliano’s more recent First Symphony, his Piano Concerto alternates furious, dissonant shrieks with sweet, heart-on-the-sleeve melodies. Despite the return of important themes, the work displayed little sense of inner continuity, and the message was meager.

In pianist James Tocco, however, the composer had an ideal soloist. No matter how densely clustered the chords or how rapid the figuration, Tocco’s ample technique and precise, percussive attacks took every challenge in stride. At the concerto’s conclusion, he appeared understandably exhausted but undaunted.

Nowak opened with Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” Overture. The orchestra’s mellow string sonorities and flexible dynamic shadings set a laudable standard it upheld throughout the evening.