MUSIC REVIEW : San Diego Symphony Carries On, Bravely

The San Diego Symphony is in trouble again. Alarming trouble.

The orchestra, which has long teetered on the financial brink, suddenly faces a $900,000 deficit, with no cash reserves on hand. In response to the emergency, the concert schedule has been curtailed, and the players have agreed to take a 7.1% pay cut.

Yoav Talmi, the much admired music-director, finds his salary--unofficially estimated at $150,000--reduced by 20%. Wesley Brustad, the ambitious executive director who is said to earn $115,000, faces a similar reduction.

Still, the symphonic show went on bravely Friday night at Copley Hall. To the uninitiated, it looked like business as usual.

The beautifully renovated auditorium, capacity 2,250, yawned with empty seats. To the untrained eye it seemed half empty. San Diego apparently is not rallying to the cause.

There were no rallying pre-concert speeches, no pleas for support in the lobby. No solicitation slips were inserted in the program magazine.

The music was the thing. Within the makeshift stage-shell, some 70 musicians played Bruckner for Talmi as if lives were at stake.

The orchestra had never encountered the heroic sprawl of the Symphony No. 3 before. Talmi, who has a special affinity for the hyper-Romantic German repertory, intends to play one Bruckner symphony a year in San Diego until he has explored the entire canon. He has already ventured the 7th and 9th.

Given the current fiscal conditions, no one knows for sure if he, or the orchestra, will be around to complete the 10-year survey. The prospects are sobering.

It is especially distressing that monetary ills should recur at a time when the San Diego Symphony is enjoying uncommon artistic health. Talmi has not proven himself a virtuoso at fuss and fanfare (one hopes that isn’t the problem). The Israeli maestro has, however, transformed an eager but scraggly band into something remarkably close to a world-class ensemble.

On this tense occasion, he inspired his players to the point where Bruckner’s one-hour marathon actually sounded short and easy. That is a very difficult achievement.

Favoring the relatively compact 1889 edition of the Third and conducting from memory, he kept the tone slender and the rhetoric taut. He luxuriated in the brilliant climaxes and found ample excitement in the passages of convoluted agitation. He also defined the poetry of the otherworldly Adagio with extraordinary sensitivity, a rather thin string section notwithstanding.

This conductor knows the secret of restraint. He never exaggerates, never dawdles, never adds his own theatricality to the composer’s indulgent drama. For all the built-in bombast, Talmi’s Bruckner is compelling because it is so lean, so clean and so thoughtful.

One wonders why the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which employs many a less-gifted conductor during its extended winter and summer seasons, never calls upon Talmi. He could be a very useful guest on the podium both at the Music Center and Hollywood Bowl.

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 served as curtain raiser on Friday, with Imogen Cooper as soloist. This turned out to be a rather dutiful performance, poignant in the lyricism of the Largo but something of a scramble elsewhere.

The sympathetic British pianist offered more competence than bravura. Talmi provided efficient accompaniment. The orchestra players seemed to have their minds on something else.

Bruckner, perhaps. Or their threatened paychecks.