By Keith Kreitman

Concert review

In recent years, I’ve commented negatively about the imprecisions plaguing the Peninsula Symphony and wondered whether its reputation exceeded its quality.

The symphony’s May 12 concert at Flint Center proved me wrong. In an all-Russian program, music director Mitchell Sardou Klein validated his reputation as a first-rank conductor and may have been all that was needed to inspire his musicians to pull together to perform a first-class concert.

No longer did I need to cringe in expectation of a ragged opening with questionable intonation. From the first notes of Dmitri Kabalevsky’s dazzling “Colas Breugnon Overture, Op. 24,” it was near perfection.

Klein held nothing back in his baton technique and physically threw himself into establishing control from the outset. He bridled the orchestra and it took off at a gallop. The lower strings, trombones and bassoons were outstanding. After the richness of melodic lines and harmonies were picked up by the rest of the instruments, they thrust to a conclusion that left the audience weak and suspecting it was about to hear an outstanding concert.

Soloist Angela Fuller, Irving M. Klein International String Competition winner and member of the Minnesota Orchestra, was a poised, confident and graceful performer. Her rich violin tone and technique did great justice to Sergei Prokofiev’s vibrant “Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor.”

The orchestra was suitably restrained and supportive in its role. The fact Fuller, 24, received only one curtain call was certainly due more to the audience’s bewilderment at the unaccustomed dissonances woven into the work than the quality of her execution.

The major work of the evening was Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s often somber “Symphony No. 6 in B minor,” performed to death during the Tchaikovsky rage of the 1940s. Klein gave it new life. Again, he went to extremes of control and beyond to draw out his instrumentalists as I have never heard them before. Except for a few of the customary bloopers by the French horns, it was perfection.

The lower strings were outstanding throughout. Principal clarinetist Marshall Hollimon, whom I considered a weak soloist before, pulled out the stops in projection and pure beauty of tone. Principal bassoon John Givens handled difficult passages with aplomb. The tone of principal flutist Ellen Crawford was warm, full and round. Above all, the brass, whom I have criticized for poor intonation, were flawless and rich in tone.

Klein and the orchestra were so driven to realizing the full opportunities of the dynamics Tchaikovsky built into the score, they pulled off the best rendition of the third movement march theme I have ever heard.

Obviously, the Peninsula Symphony is back.