A Home Run in the Ninth for Pacific Symphony

Using a baseball metaphor no doubt tied in with the summer season, the Pacific Symphony called its program at Irvine’s Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre on Saturday night “Classic Heavy Hitters”--the “sluggers” in question being Beethoven and Mozart. Let’s run with that a bit; while Beethoven’s mighty Symphony No. 9 is certainly a home run-sized opus--a grand slam, actually--Mozart’s less grandly proportioned Concerto No. 10 for two pianos is more like a solid leadoff single to left field, or perhaps more accurately, a double, from this great contact hitter.

Conductor Carl St.Clair reconfirmed previous impressions that he has Mozart in his grip, with disciplined, lean yet vibrant textures backing the crisp duo-piano team of Arianna Goldina and Remy Loumbrozo. In effect, St.Clair seemed to use the Ninth’s opening movements as a transition from Mozart’s classical niceties, producing robust yet precisely etched lines and fast-leaning tempos. Nor was St.Clair in any mood to linger over the slow movement, taking the Andante moderato tempo marking at its word.

The huge choral finale can actually seem anticlimactic in poorly paced performances, but there was no danger of that Saturday night. St.Clair was aiming his sights upon a big finish and he pulled it off, culminating with a warp-speed coda slamming along faster and faster as it went. Moreover, he had the tools for the job, from the big-boned cello-bass recitatives at the beginning to the stentorian, slightly driven quartet of vocal soloists, the fervent Pacific Chorale--and last, but not least, excellent outdoor amplification. At the right times, you could feel the electricity and sense of occasion that a good performance of the Ninth should produce.