Sellout for Princeton orchestra

PRINCETON - The Princeton Symphony Orchestra is looking like a lifeboat - maybe a life yacht? - since the Philadelphia Orchestra hit its bankruptcy iceberg.

Departing associate conductor Rossen Milanov just concluded his first season as music director of the financially healthy (though much smaller-scale) Princeton ensemble. The program might not have been a sellout in less sophisticated environs, but it was on Sunday at Richardson Auditorium.

Though Di Wu was exactly the sort of pianist to wrest Rachmaninoff's popular Piano Concerto No. 2 away from one's vast points of reference to past performances, Milanov's decision to program Scriabin's Symphony No. 2 went better than might have been expected. Though the composer's magnetic personality is marked by an idiosyncratic vision and unique color palette, there's a reason his distinguished piano sonatas grew more compact in his artistic maturity.

With characteristic clarity and a keen sense of organization, Milanov found not-often-heard levels of continuity in the symphony, but also revealed the composer's lack of thematic development over long spans of music: Scriabin could do it, but after stating some attractive melody, he never took it to more interesting places. Some performances compensate with sheer symphonic lushness, but only the slow movement, which retreats into a dreamy, druggy lotus land, justifies that.

Milanov's reading held my attention in ways that rarely happen with this piece, but listeners who found their minds wandering should know it's not their fault. Nonetheless, the audience seemed grateful to encounter the piece. Just because it's a symphonic white elephant doesn't mean it hasn't certain value.

The orchestra played like a solid, second-tier ensemble, thanks partly to the excellent, beefed-up lower brass section. The rest of the concert, which seemed less rehearsed, showed there's work to do. Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina prelude revealed problems among violas and horns, as well as an overall lack of sustained tension amid soft playing. The Rachmaninoff was occasionally rough around the edges, though both pianist and conductor had no shame about creating the most extravagant gestures the music can accommodate.

With her exceptional intelligence, temperament, and technique to fully project those qualities, Wu is among the best exponents of the piece currently before the public. Much of the concerto is built on repeated, rising sequences that most pianists treat like steps to a monumental summit. In Wu's hands, every step was its own distinctive experience. And her summits were higher.