Feltsman, Pacific Symphony Perform Fresh, Thrilling Bach

The Pacific Symphony on Wednesday night turned to music much loved. And yet it was a daring concert in Segerstrom Hall.

The program was all-Bach--two piano concertos and two orchestral suites played and conducted by Vladimir Feltsman--and symphony orchestras don’t attempt Bach very often. Intimidated by the early-music movement, symphony orchestras have left Bach to specialists, to performers who have mastered older instruments and come to terms with the stylistic practices of the Baroque period. When in a defiant mood, our modern orchestras enjoy reclaiming the lavishly non-historical arrangements of Bach by Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Stokowski--which is yet another kind of historical research.

The fact is, Bach’s music is robust. Period practices can make us feel intimately involved with its details, its structure, its sensuous beauty. Amusingly romantic arrangements of it can remind us of its bold and epic magnificence. But Feltsman accomplished something more important. He presented a modern audience with practical Bach--beautifully played on modern instruments and meant to communicate in an acoustically dry modern concert hall. It was a fresh, thrilling concert.

Feltsman has had an interesting career. A dozen years ago, he arrived in New York from Moscow perfectly typecast in the mold of the Russian romantic, a dissident pianist who had needed State Department help to emigrate, a moody virtuoso who specialized in Chopin, Liszt and the early 20th century Russian composers.

But he was prickly. He wanted to be taken more seriously. Seemingly uneasy with the limelight, he settled into teaching and turned to Bach.

Through Bach, he seems to have found himself. He appeared loose and comfortable Wednesday in front of the Pacific Symphony. Leading the A-Major Concerto (No. 4) from the keyboard of a modern concert grand, he shushed audience applause between movements with a smile. His limber conducting style of the Orchestral Suites in B Minor and D Major (Nos. 2 and 3) had the body language of a jazz leader.

Best of all, he played Bach at the keyboard with startling clarity, profound eloquence and genuine originality. Occasionally he sounded the Russian, as in some thrilling percussive passages of the first and last movements of the D-Minor Concerto (No. 1), with which he concluded the program. But it was the singing tone, so deep and rich and pure in the slow movements (including a heart-stopping encore of the ethereal Largo movement from the F-Minor Concerto) that most memorably captured the essence of this incomparable music.

Feltsman is not ignorant of the news from the academy about how to properly phrase Baroque music. He sometimes clips notes as if playing an older instrument. And sometimes he presents a quirky mixture of present-day and period styles, but always with an emphasis on transparency and immediacy.

In the concertos, which are accompanied by just strings, the Pacific Symphony proved agile chamber musicians. The orchestral suites are grander and were not quite so nimbly played, with one exception. The D-Major includes what is familiarly known as “Air on the G String,” and it has been transcribed for everything from harmonica to panpipes to theater organ. The program note suggestion for further listening was a period instrument recording of it. Feltsman led it without fuss, and the modern strings sounded particularly exquisite on this occasion, giving the air new life. Louise DiTullio was the flutist, uncredited in the program, in the B-Minor Suite.

Last Sunday, Bach’s 314th birthday, marked the unofficial start of a vast international celebration of the composer, leading to the 250th anniversary of his death on July 28, 2000. The Pacific Symphony made the prospect seem exhilarating.