Music Review : Restrained Cleve Exacts Precision

COSTA MESA —  George Cleve cut an unassuming figure on the podium Wednesday night at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. He did not urge with large gestures. He did not toss back his considerable gray mane. He did not drip visibly from exertion.

He simply demanded that the Pacific Symphony, which he was guest conducting, attend to utmost clarity and accuracy. The musicians rose to his challenge with meticulous care.

Cleve led the kind of accessible program that has become so common in Orange County--nothing that might offend, nothing too new, too cerebral, too emotional or too unfamiliar.

Still, while Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations does not hold great profundities, it does contain much that is substantial and attractive. Sometimes lyrical, often stately, it stands as a fond tribute to dear friends. Cleve drew a gentle statement, full of well-appointed detail and punctuated by emphatic yet simply stated contrasts.

“Le Tombeau de Couperin,” Ravel’s nod to 18th-Century French preciousness, received a light, precise reading. The orchestra painted delicate dynamics in ever-transparent shades. First-chair woodwinds traded solos with good-natured grace and melancholy consideration. Brass imparted verve and buoyancy.

Cleve conducted “Symphonie Espagnole” for violin and orchestra by Eduoard Lalo with the same focused manner and light-handed observance of character.

The soloist for the occasion, Nai-Yuan Hu, however, conveyed no decisive temperament in this work, though he did bring plenty of technical assuredness and a meaty tone to his performance.

But reliability, even technical wizardry, could not carry the moment. The piece called, in vain, for dramatic flair, for steamy flirtation and rich coloration, yet its protagonist never strayed from his bland and determined path.