Pacific Symphony Program Surprises With Light Motif

David Lockington led a surprisingly lightweight program with the Pacific Symphony this week, but no apologies were necessary--not when repertory and execution give as much pleasure as they did Wednesday night at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Rachmaninoff’s First Piano Concerto and Gustav Holst’s suite, “The Planets,” resounded brightly and brilliantly--in moments almost raucously--through Segerstrom Hall. Yet the exuberance the orchestra displayed was justified in serious, probing performances that held the listener tightly despite haphazard moments.

And the thoughtful piece that served as overture, Charles Ives’ “The Unanswered Question,” proved that the handsome British conductor--a veteran of North American regional orchestras in Long Island and New Mexico and about to take over in Grand Rapids, Mich.--knows exactly what he is about musically and has the skills to coax an orchestra into revelatory performances. The trumpeter in the all-important solos in the Ives piece was Robert Frear.

Holst’s broad canvas became an engrossing musical parade full of felicitous contrasts, myriad orchestral colors and emotional high points--more than we get when we hear the piece, as usual, out of doors. Lockington caressed the details; the orchestra sometimes overplayed.

Garrick Ohlsson proved the right pianist to survey Rachmaninoff’s famous but not often heard Opus One with an appropriate blend of coolness and passion--achieving all the climaxes yet never overstating or sentimentalizing the composer’s youthful high spirits.

Warm authority is Ohlsson’s strong suit. He plays as fast and furiously as any of his peers, but he never forgets to make the piano sing at all dynamic levels. On the basis of this one outing, one can say he owns this work. Lockington and the orchestra collaborated expertly, wholeheartedly and in perfect sync.