MUSIC REVIEW : Pacific Symphony Tackles Liszt Novelty

A novelty that probably will not-- ought not--to make it into the standard repertory drew particular attention to the Pacific Symphony program Wednesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Guest conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn, music director of the Nashville Symphony, and pianist Janina Fialkowska played Liszt’s so-called Concerto No. 3, discovered in 1988 by a graduate student at the University of Chicago while he was doing research in Weimar and Budapest.

Composed in 1839, the piece apparently was never played by Liszt or revised, as he did his first and second concertos. And he never published it among his works that require no fewer than 21 pages--including some double-columned--to list in the New Grove dictionary.

This one-movement piece lasts about 15 minutes and unfolds in three sections--a dialogue of contrasting character between orchestra and soloist, a development of a full-throated Romantic tune and a fiery finish.

Is there a lost treasure here?

Hardly. The ideas are simplistic and repetitively, predictably developed. This is sketch stuff.

But perhaps a better case for it can be made than was heard here, which is odd because Fialkowska gave the world premiere with the Chicago Symphony in 1990, and has played it several times since, including a date with the Long Beach Symphony last year.

Even so, the pianist merely offered poised, dry, careful playing. These are not exactly the qualities associated with Liszt’s swooning, soaring, demonic Romanticism.

This Romanticism may be worked out immaturely in the Third Concerto, but it is splendidly present in the Second. But here, too, Fialkowska offered fluent, if dispassionate virtuosity, instead of risk-taking or fiery commitment.

Still, she had the uncommon generosity to insist on principal cellist Timothy Landauer taking a bow with her, undoubtedly in recognition of his fervent, stylish playing in the cello-piano dialogue.

Schermerhorn could not impel the orchestra, which sounded unusually ragged, to make up any expressive lacks. Similarly, he and the Pacific did not make a persuasive case for Carl Nielsen’s sprawling, impassioned Symphony No. 4 (“Inextinguishable”).

Although he conducted from memory, he did not get the big, sweeping effects he gestured for; but neither did he demand the big climaxes from the brass that anchor the composer’s meandering thoughts in architectural and expressive soundness. Perhaps the chemistry between guest and orchestra just wasn’t right.

The program opened with a lackluster account of Berlioz’s “Le Corsaire” Overture.