O.C. MUSIC REVIEW : Pacific Symphony Plays to Semkow’s Strengths

One can never quite trust a conductor who puts Tchaikovsky at the end of a program.

It looks too much as if he’s depending on a roaring ovation to save the day and needs the heavy artillery to get it. Enter old Piotr Ilyich.

As it turned out Thursday night, when Jerzy Semkow closed his Pacific Symphony program with Tchaikovsky’s wind-blown “Francesca di Rimini,” he was pursuing neither cheap thrills nor cheap applause. The work just happened to be another score that Semkow conducts particularly well.

Indeed, Thursday’s program seemed just a collection of the Polish conductor’s favorites, for it certainly didn’t make much sense, on paper or in the event, as either a cumulative unit or a complementary grouping. From the Italianate vim of Rossini’s “L’Italiani in Algeri” Overture to the dark musings and heroic splendor of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, from the delicate painting of Mussorgsky’s Introduction to “Khovanshchina” to the obvious graphics of Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca,” this was a program with an identity crisis.

Yet Semkow, former conductor of the St. Louis Symphony and Royal Danish Opera, offered insight into each piece in turn, in detailed, lively and authoritative readings.

To the Rossini overture, which opened this concert at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, he brought crisp tempos and pert accentuation while building climaxes of bubbly high spirits--a nifty run-through.

His account of the Schumann symphony uncovered its Beethovian vigor as well as its lyrical charms, in a tightly focused, emphatic and rugged performance. There was no dawdling here, or perfunctory feeling, just consistently taut and sculpted phrasing, purposefully directed.

Semkow clearly traced the delicacies of the “Khovanshchina” Introduction, eliciting sensitive dynamics and shimmering color from the orchestra (and coughing from the crowd), and avoiding gushing lyricism in the melody in favor of a folk-tune squareness.

His take on “Francesca” was practically--and refreshingly--aristocratic: rhythmical, never swooning; keenly balanced, never bombastic; and accented with great finesse. He alertly shaped every passing phrase and, even amidst the din of the work’s climactic moments, found detail, and enforced nuance.

The Pacific Symphony responded to its guest’s unique ministrations--which included considerable wiggling of the baton and cueing that looked like he was pulling open little drawers of sound--with unflagging spirit and uneven polish. But the sloppinesses proved of the quickly passing variety, and the orchestra appeared to give the conductor everything he wanted in the way of expressiveness.