MUSIC REVIEW : Foster and Donohoe in Opener of Pacific Symphony Season

It was opening night for the Pacific Symphony, and it sounded like it. That is, it sounded as if the orchestra hadn’t played together for a while, hadn’t sat in Segerstrom Hall of the Orange County Performing Arts Center all summer, hadn’t had time to adjust to this week’s guest conductor. All in all, it was an inauspicious beginning to the orchestra’s 11th season.

Kazimierz Kord, the orchestra’s musical adviser and principal guest conductor, was not on hand for the opening festivities Tuesday. Lawrence Foster, former assistant conductor with the Los Angles Philharmonic and now music director of the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, held the podium on this occasion. He is the first of seven guest conductors this season, as the orchestra continues searching for a permanent music director. It’s an ensemble in a transitional stage, which certainly goes a long way in explaining Tuesday’s unsettled results.

British pianist Peter Donohoe served as the evening’s soloist in Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 1. If ever there was a concerto to test an orchestra’s mettle, this is it. The complex sonorities, the driving and shifting meter and the complicated interplay between soloist and ensemble tax even the greatest of orchestras. This one wasn’t yet ready for it.

From the beginning, orchestra and soloist never quite got together. Donohoe leaped into his part with neat, energetic efficiency; the orchestra lagged behind. Foster beat out the rapidly changing meter clearly but his players turned the corners with labored effort.

Even in the slow movement, with its steadily repeated thump, thump, thump, the ensemble didn’t gel. The music plodded along aimlessly.

And so it went. The unevenness of the hall’s acoustic, its clear highs and muffled bass, made balances an ongoing problem. The percussion, placed immediately surrounding the soloist, obscured orchestral detail. The brass section could have been in another county: Its sound did not project forward. Donohoe gave a propulsive, clean account of the solo, but this concerto does not live by piano alone.

After intermission things went a little better for Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C. Here the strings made a solid contribution, with precise execution and lean tone. Foster was most convincing in the Andante second movement, where the steady clockwork of his tempo, the intimate details in small-scaled passages and a warm unhurried lyricism worked its charm.

Overall, however, his interpretation proved more neat than noble, interesting rather than inspired. Woodwind solos generally lacked sparkle and the brass were, again, recessed. Schubert’s Ninth has been known to have greater effect.

The concert began with a stately, well-played account of “The Moldau” by Smetana.