MUSIC REVIEW : Shaham’s Skill Delivers Riches : Symphony: Violinist gives a brilliant performance of shallow Korngold piece.

For ordinary mortals who sweated through childhood’s quotidian challenges, it is a consolation to learn that some prodigies didn’t amount to much over the long haul.

At age 10, budding Viennese composer Erich Korngold was pronounced a genius by Gustav Mahler, and, at age 15, his compositional prowess struck fear in the heart of Richard Strauss.

In the 1920s, Korngold’s operas were as profitable as Lloyd Webber’s are today, but it was all downhill from there. The lad who would be a second Mozart turned out to be Hollywood’s most facile film scorer. And, when he returned to serious composition after World War II, his talent was spent.

On Thursday night, violinist Gil Shaham brought Korngold’s 1947 D Major Violin Concerto, commissioned by no less than Jascha Heifitz, to Copley Symphony Hall. With sympathetic assistance from the San Diego Symphony under music director Yoav Talmi, Shaham gave Korngold’s shallow opus a brilliant, almost ecstatic performance.

Shaham, who signed his first recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon at age 16, can claim prodigy status if he wishes, but he is well beyond it. Thursday night, the 21-year-old Israeli musician displayed uncanny maturity and insight. His sound was opulent, broad and beautifully focused in the middle and upper ranges.

He soared over every technical hurdle--the concerto is 98% dizzy pyrotechnics and 2% sensual ooze--with apparent ease. Despite the concerto’s overblown idiom, Shaham shaped every phrase gracefully. His is a major talent.

Before serving Korngold’s decadent pastry, Talmi offered Bartok’s decidedly high-fiber Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, one of the landmark compositions of this century.

The work’s dense counterpoint taxed the orchestra’s string sections, which were divided into two equal antiphonal groups, and revealed a lack of unity in the mercilessly exposed entrances. Talmi’s slack tempos and failure to bring out the incisive character of the driving, highly rhythmic second and fourth movements weakened the impact of Bartok’s most original work.

And the slow movement, the classic instance of the composer’s eerie “night music,” lacked its wonted mystery. Nevertheless, the programming of such a substantial work from the 20th-Century repertory was welcome.

Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony ended the evening on a congenial note. Talmi caressed the symphony’s lithe melodies and encouraged its nimble sprints, stressing its life-affirming spirit without attempting to overlay it with pompous posturing. Back on familiar turf, the orchestra again found a cohesive, disciplined voice.

Like last week’s Schumann Symphony, the Beethoven pleased both mind and ear.