Pacific Symphony Strains Toward Artistry and Meaning

There’s a peril in transporting ballet music from the pit to the concert stage, one that Carl St.Clair succumbed to in a five-part program by the Pacific Symphony on Wednesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

The problem is losing the dance impulse, the rhythmic gesture and phrasing that tie the music to particular movement and mood.

So the dark, sculpted phrases that open the Stravinsky’s “Firebird” created no sense of ominous tension or foreboding, as intended, but rather floated nebulously without inflection or point.

Perhaps St.Clair heard more impressionistic Debussy than hard-edged Rimsky-Korsakov in the score, never mind Stravinsky. That may be a viable choice, but the difference was important because it was emblematic of much of the music-making that evening.

It was undercharged and undercharacterized.

In this regard, St.Clair and 19-year-old violin soloist Sarah Chang were in sync.

Chang played Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E minor and the last two sections of Sarasate’s “Carmen Fantasy.”

She gave the Sarasate showpiece a virtuoso run-through, bypassing any emotional possibilities along the way, which may be adequate enough for it. The audience went wild and gave her her second standing ovation of the night.

But the lack of expressive interpretation in Mendelssohn was a far more grievous matter. Chang played soft, sometimes very soft, and she played fast, sometimes very fast. But she didn’t sing, she didn’t probe, she didn’t illuminate the work. It didn’t mean much.

The exception to the general listlessness occurred in Pacific composer-in-residence Richard Danielpour’s eight-minute “Toward the Splendid City,” where St.Clair kept the rhythmic drive clear and present.

Composed for the New York Philharmonic in 1992, the piece more accurately might be titled “In the Splendid City” because it captures with great vividness the nonstop energy and drive of New York, Danielpour’s hometown.

The conductor opened the concert with a sturdy account of Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture.”