MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : PACIFIC SYMPHONY

Observers of the Southern California musical scene in the 21st Century will probably look back on 1986 as the year Orange County reached its first maturity--not merely because it is opening a major performing arts center this year, but more significantly through its continued, and now fruitful, support of locally developed performing ensembles.

Orange County Pacific Symphony, the orchestra founded by Keith Clark in 1978, is the most important of these. Just how important, it proved again Saturday night at Santa Ana High School Auditorium.

As if to underline at this point in the 1985-86 season his orchestra’s achievements, Clark put together a program in which it might be compared to any other regional symphonic band. In performances of Stravinsky’s “Petrushka” and Brahms’ B-flat Piano Concerto, the Pacific Symphony showed its extraordinary instrumental resources, its tightness as an ensemble and the deep strengths of its first-chair players.

“Petrushka” was accomplished without a hitch. String and wind choirs delivered polished and brilliant statements matter-of-factly; Clark’s tempos avoided empty show and self-indulgence; among other soloists, flutist Louise DiTullio and pianist Sandra Matthews distinguished themselves.

Even more impressive were the seamless orchestral fabric and grand musical plan achieved by Clark in what is arguably Brahms’ most demanding symphonic masterpiece, the Second Piano Concerto.

The solid and unflagging soloist, Misha Dichter, found much of the pianistic poetry and vehemence in the work, though sometimes becoming a victim of his own literalness and, in certain places--like the close of the second movement--of his own harsh tone.