The Parts Add Up for Tchaikovsky

The usual way to deal with Tchaikovsky is to talk about his gift for melody, his tendency for slush-pump orchestrations and his weakness in handling large structural forms.

There’s a certain amount of truth to all that, but it doesn’t begin to cover the subject, as was clear in the Pacific Symphony’s four-part Tchaikovsky program Saturday at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine.

Certainly, he wrote wonderful, memorable melodies. But his orchestrations were varied and subtle as well as big and imposing. Absolutely no other composer has been able to shift so easily, naturally and persuasively between personal intimacy and public pomp and circumstance as did Tchaikovsky.

As for large forms, yes, his symphonies and concertos tend to sprawl. But consider the coherence in the second act of the “Nutcracker” ballet.

Conductor Carl St.Clair took a big risk in presenting the whole thing--every note, including the real ending of the Sugar Plum Fairy’s Variation instead of the concert ending familiar from the “Nutcracker” Suite.

The potential for tedium to set in was high, if only because of the surfeit of cadences and climaxes that make more sense when the score is played to accompany a stage full of dancers.

But St.Clair avoided all that. He led a stylish, well-paced account that reflected the drive, variety and imaginative vision of the composer. The climaxes were all different. The andante maestoso of the grand Pas de Deux, initiated sensitively and authoritatively by the cello section, was appropriately thrilling.

By that time, the amplification system (or the listener’s ears) had long been adjusted to the great outdoors, and wonderful details of orchestration frequently emerged. Who had ever heard such luscious inner wind parts in the Chinese Dance, for instance?

Indeed, St.Clair made a strong case for the act as a Concerto for Orchestra, so vividly different are its parts and yet so unified is it stylistically and, of course, structurally in the way the ending loops back to the music of the opening and recapitulates later sections of the score as well.

The amplification had not served so well at the opening of the concert, in the Polonaise from “Eugene Onegin,” where the middle and lower string sections had sounded muddy, and the ensemble as a whole had more resembled a band than an orchestra.

Here, St.Clair had tended to lead at only two levels of dynamic, forte and mezzo forte, as if the Polonaise could not also embody the ebb and flow of the drama in the opera, in which love between two unhappy people is thwarted ultimately by duty. Thematically, this approaches heavy Verdi territory, but Tchaikovsky holds his own quite nicely.

Tamaki Kawakubo, 20, was the soloist in the Violin Concerto, playing an extraordinarily responsive 1707 “Cathedral” Stradivarius on loan from the Mandell Collection of Southern California.

Her warm, rich, brilliant tone soared into the open space. Unfortunately, she does not yet invest the work with much of a personal touch, although she revved up the endings of the outer movements enough to garner a standing ovation at the end of both of them. Perhaps it took her a while to warm up.

Her cadenzas were show-off time, especially for pianissimo notes in the celestial heights. But she didn’t seem to be telling the 8,553 listeners much otherwise in them or even in the tender middle movement.

Here, again, the principal wind players made touching, undemonstrative contributions that remind us how strong this section of the orchestra is.

St.Clair followed her diligently, which didn’t look all that easy, especially as she seemed to be finding her way in the first movement.

Rightfully, the concert could have--should have--ended right after the “Nutcracker” Act. But fireworks, cannons and the “1812” Overture have been the traditional finish to the Pacific’s Tchaikovsky program for years, and, with the help of the Huntington Beach Band (Thomas Ridley, director) and Fireworks and Stage FX America, they were all delivered con brio as promised.

St.Clair directed the piece straight and without camp, the only way possible to make it work. Kudos to the four cellists and two violists who made the opening hymn a deep liturgical moment.