Paul Huang Plays a Brilliant Bruch Violin Concerto with the San Diego Symphony

Friday’s arch-Romantic San Diego Symphony concert brought back memories of the programming of Music Director Rafael Payare’s predecessor Jahja Ling: a Mendelssohn overture, a grand Tchaikovsky symphony, and a cherished solo concerto. But if the formula for this concert appeared familiar, the musical results were not. I believe I risk no controversy asserting that the orchestra has improved under Payare’s leadership. Now equally significant is the hall’s stunning acoustical improvement that allows the audience to experience more vividly and clearly the orchestra’s performance.

From the resonant brass and wind choir chorale that opened Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture to Roy Blas, we experienced a sonic presence and acute definition that the recently renovated Jacobs Music Center hall now generously provides. Guest conductor Antonio Méndez smartly shaped the string sections’ effervescent flights to give this spirited overture its due.

In contrast with Pinchas Zuckerman’s understated approach to the Beethoven Violin Concerto two weeks ago with the San Diego Symphony, Taiwanese violinist Paul Huang brought his bold sound and fiery interpretation to Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor. From his brilliant opening cadenza, Huang commanded the concerto, and Méndez and the orchestra complemented his zeal. Huang savored Bruch’s poetry in the sumptuous slow movement themes, and his “Finale” could not have been more jubilantly played or scrupulously detailed.

Spanish conductor Antonio Méndez made an impressive debut conducting the San Diego Symphony in March, 2024, at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido. On that program he led Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, a stellar performance I described in my review  as  “immaculately detailed yet emotionally rich,” a description which aptly describes his direction of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E Minor on Friday’s concert.

The orchestra’s clarinets, Principal Clarinet Sheryl Renk and Max Opferkuch, graced the inviting theme that opens the Symphony’s first movement slow introduction, and the brass sections supplied blazing fanfares as Méndez deftly transitioned to the movement’s driving “Allegro con anima,” a more structurally complex first movement than the typical sonata allegro form. On the podium, Méndez guided the orchestra with insight delivered with calm but genial authority, an approach that served the entire Fifth Symphony well. In the solemn second movement, “Andante cantabile,” Principal Horn Benjamin Jaber played its main theme–arguably Tchaikovsky’s most recognized melody–as eloquently as I ever expect to hear it played, and Principal Cello Yao Zhao and his section offered equally emotionally rich themes that bloomed into bravura climaxes from the all the string sections. Méndez chose a graceful tempo for the “Valse” movement, although its meter needed better focus to communicate the sweep of this cherished waltz. And his propulsive, majestic “Finale” brought the symphony to a deservedly triumphant conclusion.

This concert was presented by the San Diego Symphony at the Jacobs Music Center in downtown San Diego on October 25 & 26, 20224. The October 25 performance was attended for this review.