St.Clair’s Flair Is a High Point in ‘Alpine’

Carl St.Clair showed a sure and knowing hand when he led the Pacific Symphony in Strauss’ “An Alpine Symphony” on Wednesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Augmented with extra strings, brass, winds, an organ, celesta, cow bells, and wind and thunder machine, the orchestra sounded sonorous and rich, and under St.Clair’s guidance the evocative, pictorial effects worked grandly.

Helping to guide the listener through the piece, which ranges from the sublime to the downright awful (the loudest and most banal storm in music), supertitles of the 22 continuous sections (“The Ascent,” “Through Thicket and Briar to Wrong Paths,” “On the Glacier”) were projected above the stage. Without them, you might have reached the summit too early, although there was no question where you were when the cowbells clanked.

The program started with Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor with Hsing-ay Hsu as a subdued soloist. In a romantic work that calls for poetry, she offered only prose. St.Clair accompanied considerately, keeping the orchestra down so as not to overwhelm her but trying to rev things up when the orchestra played alone. The mix didn’t work very well.

Before the program, St.Clair received onstage proclamations honoring his 50th birthday, which is June 5, from Sen. Dianne Feinstein and the cities of Santa Ana and Costa Mesa. (He’ll be conducting in Germany on the day itself.) After the program, the orchestra and the audience sang “Happy Birthday.”