An Airborne Tchaikovsky

Ballet scores weren’t part of the Tchaikovsky Spectacular, the fireworks-studded event that capped Pacific Symphony’s summer series Saturday night at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, but the spirit of dance infused much of the program, and guest conductor Jack Everly was just the leader to bring it out.

Particularly in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Opus 36, and in the composer’s waltz from the ballet “Eugene Onegin,” Everly urged musicians toward the same kind of rarefied clarity and sense of being airborne that would be expected from one who had just spent 14 years as music director for the American Ballet Theatre in New York.

In response--aided by much more sympathetic sound engineering than at the orchestra’s previous concert--players delivered crisp, flavorful readings that explored the contrast between pristine containment and emotional sweep.

In the process, Everly brought out the strength that detailed synchrony can effect. In the pizzicato scherzo of the Fourth Symphony, strings came together with purposeful unity, seconded by careful rhythmic mimicry from the brass. The finale took much of its potency from single-minded starts and stops that set off silences with portentous power.

Individual members provided further support. Newly appointed associate concertmaster Paul Manaster made his debut, standing in for absent concertmaster Kevin Connolly as steward of a well-disciplined violin section. Principals Barbara Northcutt on oboe and Leslie Lashinsky on bassoon spun melancholy solos, ripe with poignancy.

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The orchestra featured its principal cellist, Timothy Landauer, as soloist in “Variations on a Rococo Theme.” Landauer swept through the work with discernible intelligence and technical assurance, even flair, but missed the level of depth and engagement that would have set the performance above others.

The season came to an end with the now-traditional bang that is the “1812” Overture, Opus 49, complete with fireworks that began with the French national anthem and the Huntington Beach Concert Band playing the Russian theme, following by cannons that finished them all off.