Pacific Symphony Program a Mixed Bag

A showy, event-packed Russian/French program backfired Wednesday night, when the Pacific Symphony, led enthusiastically--as always--by Music Director Carl St.Clair, promised more than it delivered.

A little Ravel, some virtually unknown Franck, Prokofiev’s rarely heard First Piano Concerto and Stravinsky’s “Sacre du Printemps” looked compatible on paper. In the ear, and performed with sometimes fuzzy textures by the overworked orchestra--swollen to “Sacre”-size on the crowded stage of Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center--this agenda became motley. And its inner connections proved tenuous at best.

At the end, there was a careful, restrained and competent “Rite of Spring,” during which St.Clair seemed ever to be on the verge of clarifying its complexities, yet at the same time appeared unable to lighten its layers. The orchestra played fearlessly but without an overarching vision. Bar followed bar, dutifully.

The program’s first half began with a sleepy overture, Ravel’s “Pavane pour une enfante defunte,” followed with “Les Djinns,” Franck’s brief, quasi-exotic, at once innocuous and irritating essay for piano and orchestra, and the early Prokofiev work.

Andrei Gavrilov, irrepressible soloist in the last two, played loud and fast through both without musically justifying their inclusion on the program. Resuscitating Franck’s empty little morsel seemed a waste of energy, and Prokofiev’s D-flat Concerto is actually a better and more faceted work than it sounded this time around; it has an inner life, which the surface-obsessed pianist did not bring out.

In response to a vociferous response from the Pacific Symphony audience, Gavrilov played some more noisy early Prokofiev for an encore, the “Suggestion Diabolique” of Opus 4, which Gavrilov called “The Devil’s Inspiration.”