Pommer Is a Welcome Guest

Quietly authoritative, unprepossessing, pointedly stylish in his approach to different composers, Max Pommer made an impressive debut as guest conductor with the Pacific Symphony on Wednesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

The German musician, a native of Leipzig, offered a familiar but unhackneyed program that satisfied through its variety. Its mellow conclusion was Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony, given a bright, thoroughly detailed and fluent reading by the game players of the orchestra, who seemed to be enjoying this experience as much as the listeners.

Pommer provided a well-guided tour of the work’s colorful musical scenario. Tempos flowed naturally, unstraitjacketed; orchestral balances maintained equilibrium--string and winds complementing each other effortlessly. The Menuetto had an elegant bumptiousness. And, at the “surprise” chord in the Andante, Pommer shared a conspiratorial smile with the audience. Charming.

Handsome playing characterized the entire performance. At the beginning, there was Handel’s “Royal Fireworks” music in all its bright display, crisp stylishness and perfectly balanced instrumentalism. After intermission, Pommer led a lush and gorgeous revival of Elgar’s sentiment-drenched Serenade for Strings.

Surprisingly, then, the one sagging place in this program was in what is perhaps Mozart’s most beloved of piano concertos, No. 23 in A, wherein Angela Hewitt was the pedestrian soloist.

The Canadian pianist makes all the right musical gestures without the expected musical results. She is good, competent, efficient, but she is uninspired. This vehicle suffered from flat tires and traveled nowhere.