A night of passion by Russian composers

Three kinds of Russian music were on view at the Pasadena Symphony concert Saturday at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Conductor Jorge Mester, who is celebrating his 20th season with the orchestra, presided over the escapism of Anatoli Liadov, the realism of Dmitri Shostakovich and the romanticism of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Both Liadov’s tone poem “Kikimora” and Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony begin quietly in the low strings. But how different the journey those passages inaugurate.

Liadov’s short piece portrays a Russian folk-tale figure who is evil and hostile to humankind. But Kikimora has -- according to the note the composer prefaced to the score -- “a head as small as a thimble and a body as thin as a straw.” So her evil really isn’t terribly threatening.

It’s not surprising that the piece, once more commonly heard in concerts than it is nowadays, is colorful, charming and sly. The orchestra, unfortunately, kept it fairly earthbound.

The evil portrayed in Shostakovich’s Tenth, however, is all too real. The work is another in the seemingly inexhaustible series of the composer’s works that plunge the listener into a world of desolation, oppression and survival. It is impossible to hear such passionate music without making political inferences, especially knowing that the work was written shortly after Stalin’s death in 1953.

The length of the first movement -- almost half of the work’s 55 minutes -- creates problems for the conductor because it seems so drawn out. Mester didn’t entirely escape a sense of dissipated tension. But overall, the performance was strong, with the second movement crackling with energy and the finale ending in a blaze.

Jennifer Frautschi, a native of Pasadena whose international career has been in ascent, was the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D. Her approach was more lyrical and reflective than fiery and intense. She spun out one continuous line, but that did not always turn out to be continuous melody. Mester and the orchestra provided somewhat chunky accompaniment.