CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW : Violinist, Pace of Sibelius Piece Highlight Evening

After the emotional frenzy of a national election, Thursday night’s understated San Diego Symphony concert was just what the doctor ordered. In his first appearance with the local orchestra, guest conductor James Loughran assembled three broadly paced Romantic scores that seemed to suspend time as they meandered over their highly individual musical landscapes.

Following an inauspicious opening with a less than sensual interpretation of the Prelude and “Liebestod” from Richard Wagner’s opera “Tristan und Isolde,” 20-year-old violinist Corey Cerovsek brought his prodigious virtuosity to Max Bruch’s rarely performed Second Violin Concerto in D minor. Jean Sibelius’ sunny, triumphant Fifth Symphony, however, was the evening’s unalloyed success.

From the opening bars, Loughran found tempos that kept the work’s inner dynamic pulsing, even in the most bucolic sections. The Scottish conductor’s generously scaled gestures encompassed the score’s disparate melodic fragments and sotto voce countermelodies, molding them into the grand slow-motion chorale that climaxes the symphony. A sonority of unusual warmth and depth complemented the orchestra’s laudable discipline and cohesive ensemble. The brilliance of the woodwinds in the opening movement, especially principal bassoon Dennis Michel’s plangent solo, was matched by the soaring trumpet section in the finale. Only the horns seemed underpowered, too slender for Sibelius’ expansive scale.

Cerovsek brought ample facility to the myriad technical challenges of Bruch’s Second Violin Concerto. His sympathy with the composer’s overripe Romantic idiom was evident at every turn, and he was not afraid to apply portamento liberally to his solo line. Unlike the carbon-copy competition winners with their sleek, antiseptic tone, Cerovsek displayed a bright, edgy timbre--almost grainy--that bloomed with unusual brilliance in his highest range. With its wide vibrato, his distinct sound stood out boldly against the orchestra.

Cerovsek’s performance brought genuine excitement to an oddly static work, one that indulged in tantalizing foreplay but stopped far short of ecstasy. The concerto’s dense accompaniment found the orchestra in some disarray: sloppy entrances and unfocused ensemble.

Loughran paced the Wagner too broadly for the orchestra, exposing its understaffed string sections. Although his “Tristan” overture faithfully followed the score’s dynamic outlines, it did not smolder with sexual anticipation, nor did his “Liebestod” soar with transfigured passion. The orchestra’s unfamiliarity with the Wagnerian repertory could not be masked.

Conductor Murry Sidlin leads the San Diego Symphony today at 8 p.m. in a concert that reprises the Sibelius Fifth Symphony and includes Aaron Copland’s Suite from “Billy the Kid.”