Yuri Temirkanov walked out to the podium last night at the beginning of his concert with the Baltimore Symphony in Meyerhoff Hall to unusually warm applause. He was pleased by his reception, acknowledged it graciously, but then quickly turned around to face the orchestra. Temirkanov, the BSO's music director-designate, was there to make music.

In his program of Berlioz (the overture to "Beatrice et Benedict"), Barber (the violin concerto with Pamela Frank as soloist) and Beethoven (the Seventh Symphony), he did exactly that -- and quite gloriously, too.

Any Berlioz overture is sure-fire in the concert hall. But Temirkanov's performance had more than the usual measure of caprice and dash. The contrast between the flirtatious first theme and the lyrical second one was made especially piquant.

While conductor and orchestra captured the composer's audacious confrontations and repetitions with the necessary excitement, they also delivered his rhetoric with elegance and wit. The overture's final phrase accelerated to its conclusion with an effect that can best be described as punctuating the end of an already exciting story with an exclamation point instead of a period. This was a distinctive touch that testified to an incisive control of rhythm as well as a persuasive feeling for overall line.

Temirkanov's rhythmic sense and care for phrasing paid enormous dividends in Beethoven's Seventh. This was a fast performance electric in tension and filled with subtly molded details. In many respects, it combined the best features of two different types of interpretations.

Like many old school conductors, Temirkanov performed this piece with plenty of weight and drama. But these were achieved without any sacrifice of the symphony's dancelike elements.

While his tempos were more flexible than those of David Zinman in the second movement, Temirkanov took it almost as fast, making it a genuine allegretto that moved with enormous concentration. And his final movement may have been even faster than Zinman's. It blazed ahead with fearless exuberance but without threatening to lose its precision and momentum. In his younger days as head of the Kirov Ballet and opera, after all, it was Temirkanov who was on the podium when such dancers as Mikhail Baryshnikov and Alexander Godunov became famous.

Pamela Frank's performance of the Barber concerto wholly captured the rapture of its slow movement and the brilliance of its finale. But she needs to be reminded that the composer marked the first movement -- no matter how lovely the opening melody -- allegro rather than andante.

Pub Date: 3/26/99