A Shiny Summer Night for Pacific Symphony

Sometimes the line between superior music-making and hot-stuff virtuosity blurs. At that point, the audience gets all the rewards. Such a blur took place at the fourth of five 1996 Irvine Meadows concerts by the Pacific Symphony, on Saturday night: The skills of the players burned brightly and the music shone.

Ostensibly, this was to have been a showcase for the Pacific orchestra’s brass; two of that section’s principals--trumpeter Burnette Dillon and horn player John Reynolds--played concertos, assisted by conductor Carl St.Clair and the ensemble.

But, as well as the solo players performed, and as showy as the brass section became--particularly in two pieces by Andrea Gabrieli, Shostakovich’s “Festive” Overture and Respighi’s “Pines of Rome”--the entire ensemble, it seemed, proved to be on display.

This is the result, no doubt, of the orchestra’s steady growth as a tight ensemble of high instrumental standards, and the cohesion that happens when the chemistry is right between music director and players.

Though St.Clair did nothing special to spotlight himself on this occasion, a lot of the glory in these performances--particularly the climactic but non-raucous conclusion of “Pines of Rome” at the end of the evening--had to underline his stature as the orchestra’s genuine musical leader.

And, certainly, the enthusiastic responses of a clap-happy audience counted by the management at 6,463 didn’t hurt the general feel-goodness of the evening.

In the rigors of a D-major Concerto by Tartini, Dillon sweat not; neither did he gasp. Instead, compelling music emerged from his trumpet in happy flow and mellow tone. The piece is not easy in any wise, yet it spoke and sang joyously.

Reynolds revealed many facets in Richard Strauss’ early Horn Concerto No. 1, not the least of which proved to be its narrative fluency--the way its rhetoric moves forward while apparently anchored in stasis--and built-in virtuosic hurdles.