Pasadena Symphony Frolics in Springtime Sun

Spring came early for the Pasadena Symphony this year. The orchestra played a sunny, optimistic yet contrasting program of three treasures of the repertory Saturday night in Civic Auditorium. Music director Jorge Mester conducted with his customary authority and an even lighter hand than usual: Each of these pieces resounded spiritedly in the ear.

Franz Berwald’s Symphony No. 3, “Sinfonie Singuliere,” and Schubert’s Second Symphony, which closed the program, are well-known works we seldom hear; the composers were contemporaries. Mester & Co. proved intrepid and convincing advocates for both. The orchestra played splendidly, and with an effortless brilliance, matching what it had accomplished at the top of the evening with the more familiar “Classical” Symphony of Prokofiev.

Yet conductor Mester imparted a definite style to each part of this program. The Prokofiev emerged bright and transparent, all its sassiness firmly in place. The conductor accorded Berwald’s masterpiece its gentleness, fluency and emotional drive as needed; the result was sculptured sound, undeniable in its quiet force.

Best, the exuberant Second Symphony, finished when the composer was just 18, exerted all its charms and showed its many faces. A large and happy audience listened carefully, clapped only in the right places, and coughed almost not at all. Lucky Pasadena.