Comissiona Lets Energy Flag

Conductor Sergiu Comissiona’s strengths didn’t line up all that well with the music on a Pacific Symphony program Wednesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Comissiona has an ear for balance and clarity but not much of an ear for line and architecture. Unfortunately, Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto favor--if not require--a sense of strong forward direction and purpose.

For writers, Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 usually evokes oceanic or psychological metaphors. The music emerges from brooding darkness in immense, weighty currents that culminate nearly 60 minutes later in passages of exhilaration.

Not here. Comissiona favored slow and slower tempos. He let the energy flag. He rarely made the high points of phrases high.

Similarly--although within well-judged extremes (the orchestra never sounded harsh, as it often has)--he didn’t distinguish dynamics structurally. By not connecting the themes in the work’s inner voices, he let the orchestral fabric become threadbare. The result was a dry performance, one lacking warmth, color or much feeling of yearning, aspiring and achieving.

His collaboration with soloist Silvia Marcovici in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto appeared problematic. The Romanian violinist spent an unusual amount of time turned to the conductor. It looked as if she were attempting to get in sync with him or he with her. At any rate, the collaboration was edgy.

She played with a fine, steady, perhaps understandably tense and energized tone, and certainly met the concerto challenges. But she didn’t show--or have--much opportunity to explore nuances in the music or to make a personal statement with it.

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However, the Bucharest-born Comissiona did make a personal impact in Enesco’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, which opened the program. Showing a real affinity for the music of his compatriot, the conductor revealed that the music may be closer to the folkloric investigations of Kodaly or Bartok than to the symphonic popularizations of Brahms or Dvorak.

Even here, however, he didn’t capitalize on the steady acceleration of the episodic music. Still, his emphasis on a kind of ethnic robustness and immediacy made this once popular showpiece newly interesting and welcome.