The Florida Orchestra, Jahja Ling conductor and Janos Starker cello: Haydn Cello Concerto No. 1 in C, Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations and Brahms Symphony No. 2. Performance 8 p.m. Wednesday at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. Repeat performances 8 p.m. today at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and 8 p.m. Saturday at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg. Tickets are $13 to $22 and are available by calling 447-4210 (Pinellas) or 286-2403 (Hillsborough). Few musicians own their instrument so completely as does cellist Janos Starker. In his performance with the Florida Orchestra Wednesday night, Starker showed he dominated the instrument from the deepest resonating tones to the highest ringing pitches with such authority that there seemed no way a note _ or idea _ could be missed. Starker's two solo turns on music by Haydn and Tchaikovsky filled the first half of a program finished by music director Jahja Ling and the orchestra's performance of the Brahms Symphony No. 2 that was itself inspiring. The larger-than-average crowd gave Starker four curtain calls and a similarly enthusiastic reception for Ling and the orchestra at the close of the concert. Starker's complete control over every aspect of the instrument and his musical ideas was evident in the contrast between the two solo works on the program. For the Haydn Cello Concerto No. 1 in C, Starker was the Classicist, sailing through the technical demands with a slender and precise tone and a steady rhythmic pulse. For the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations, it was the Romantic Starker who delivered a lush, burnished tone and an awe-inspiring technique within a more fluid rhythmic sense. The Tchaikovsky was the better melding of orchestra and soloist. Starker emerged from a well-detailed accompaniment to deliver daunting technical flourishes with depressing ease. His motions are so economical that he is sometimes a visual monotone: The sound pours forth in robust waves or is pitched on the cusp of silence, all with the same relaxed body language. There was little relaxed about Ling and the orchestra's feisty version of the Brahms Symphony No. 2. This was all fire and surge. Though Ling had an orchestra at least 10 or 15 players smaller than usual for modern orchestras tackling this music, he drew a full, rich sound from the group. He also drew a more inspiring performance than one could expect from musicians who don't know if their next paycheck will arrive. There was nothing but heroics in their hard-driving performance, which Ling sculpted with enthusiasm matched by clarity.