MUSIC REVIEW : Yoav Talmi Opens San Diego Season --Ambitiously

SAN DIEGO â€”  Just a couple of years ago, the San Diego Symphony teetered, for most all-too-practical purposes, on the brink of extinction. The orchestra came within a hemidemisemiquaver of succumbing to financial crises, labor problems and artistic turmoil.

Most of that has been successfully resolved. Still, certain scars linger.

The ensemble seems a bit rusty these days. In the absence of a music director, the players may have been disoriented by an erratic parade of short-term guest conductors. At least three principal chairs still lack permanent occupants.

Never mind. Stability appears to be making a comeback in symphonic San Diego.

Last April, the management hired a new permanent conductor: Yoav Talmi. The 46-year-old Israeli, who can boast imposing European credentials, officially begins his 3-year contract in 1990-91.

Bearing the title of music director designate, he opened the 23-week concert season on Friday at the splendidly renovated movie palace now called Symphony Hall. He is scheduled to return for two more weeks during 1989-90.

It is too early, of course, to measure the rapport between Talmi and his local charges. A conductor, no matter how gifted, cannot impart his style and impose his image overnight. Nevertheless, Talmi’s inaugural efforts here proved compelling.

A no-nonsense podium personality and a solid technician, he obviously does not settle for easy successes. At the outset of this festive occasion, he joined Garrick Ohlsson in Mozart’s A-major Piano Concerto, K. 488. Then he turned to bigger business--the tempestuous, ultra-Romantic sprawl of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. The San Diegans reportedly had never ventured this lofty challenge.

The results were impressive if not exactly earth shattering. Understandably, intentions tended to outmatch achievements.

Still, this was an eminently respectable effort under daunting conditions. One had to admire Talmi for daring so drastic a test of the resources at his disposal.

He approached the mighty Mahlerian rhetoric with a nice sense of restraint, with a fine concern for balance and momentum. He reached neither for the sonic fury of a Mehta nor for the expressive indulgence of a Bernstein. Calm and eminently efficient, he let the composer do the rumbling and the rattling.

Given the relative inexperience and limited rehearsal schedule of the San Diego Symphony, he no doubt was wise to exercise interpretive caution. The orchestra responded valiantly to his brisk, measured urgings, even if precision turned out to be somewhat sporadic and textures tended toward the flimsy.

The brass blared brightly, the strings shimmered sweetly and the winds crooned deftly in this admittedly sketchy performance. Massive weights, luxurious timbres, wild colors and grandiose contrasts remained elusive. Even so, the basic points were duly registered.

The elegant first-nighters mustered ecstatic approval after the 1 1/4-hour marathon. It augured well.

In the straightforward, suitably intimate performance of the Mozart concerto that came before intermission, Ohlsson played with fluidity and generalized grace. The orchestra provided poised support, though one might have wished for a bit more dynamic sensitivity and greater melodic refinement.