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L.A. Phil: It’s the new style

By Daily Bruin Staff

Oct. 9, 1994 9:00 p.m.

L.A. Phil: It’s the new style

Setting 20th-century pace for rest of season, Los Angeles
Philharmonic blazes through Stravinsky, darts gracefully through
Prokofiev, teases audience through Lutoslawski

By John Mangum

Still feeling the rush from a recent European tour, the Los
Angeles Philharmonic blazed through a program of uneven quality
Thursday evening at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Under the baton of their Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, the
orchestra sounded better than ever. Salonen’s opening night program
combined two 20th-century favorites with a work by Philharmonic
favorite Witold Lutoslawski.

The program opened with Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s
"Classical" Symphony, an agreeable piece overflowing with tunes to
whistle.

Prokofiev said of the symphony, which he completed in 1917, "It
seems to me that if Haydn had lived today he would have retained
his own style while accepting something of the new at the same
time." Prokofiev combined the restrained humor and grace of the
idiom in which Haydn, an 18th-century composer, worked with the
angular momentum characteristic of 20th-century music. The work
defies all notions that classical music from this century sounds
loud and atonal.

The Philharmonic brought rough-edged elegance to the first two
movements and romped athletically through the gavotte and finale.
Warm playing and crisp ensemble, coupled with Salonen’s well-chosen
speeds, yielded a buoyant opening to what promised to be an
interesting evening.

The next piece on the program elicited the audience’s curiosity.
While most opening nights usually cough up a good deal of Beethoven
and Tchaikovsky, Salonen likes to evade convention.

This time his evasion took the form of Lutoslawski’s Piano
Concerto. Written in 1987, the work has yet to prove itself the way
200-year-old pieces have.

Lutoslawski, who passed away last year, maintains his position
in Los Angeles because of the advocacy Salonen gives the Polish
composer’s works. The Philharmonic not only invited Lutoslawski to
premiere his Fourth Symphony here recently, they also recorded it
for Sony Classical.

In its second outing with the Philharmonic, the Piano Concerto
was well played by the orchestra and pianist Paul Crossley, but
lacked many of the qualities that make great music interesting.

Some of the best things in the piece, like the concentrated
cadenza for the piano which opened the third section of the work,
were compromised by more pedestrian effects, like the quirky
percussion dialogue toward the close of the work.

The audience reaction to the Concerto ranged from boredom to
frenzied excitement. One woman leapt to her feet, furiously
applauding maestro, pianist and orchestra. Most others appreciated
the effort of the musicians but didn’t quite know what to think of
the new work. Beethoven or Tchaikovsky would have proved much more
enjoyable.

Too bad the audience wasn’t more like the first one that heard
the next work on the program, Igor Stravinsky’s ballet "The Rite of
Spring." At its premiere in 1913, Paris audiences rioted, throwing
things at the dancers and musicians and just generally behaving
poorly.

Thursday’s audience sat demurely and listened to Stravinsky’s
onslaught as though it was the tamest Mozart. They looked like the
people from the Simpsons in the new THX trailer.

Recognized for his interpretive genius when it comes to
Stravinsky, Salonen lived up to everyone’s expectations. His
Stravinsky rocked.

The orchestra produced a dynamic range that went from near
silence in the ballet’s introduction to a deafening roar in the
louder sections. The musicians played with an attention to detail
that produced a near perfect performance.

The evening ended well enough to promise that what lies ahead in
the Philharmonic’s season will never fail to stimulate.

The Philharmonic avoids war horses, never playing anything not
written in the last hundred years. Salonen’s allegiance to this
century brings some of its masterpieces to the Music Center with
nothing so equivocal as the Lutoslawski Piano Concerto.

He directs his orchestra in Viennese composer Gustav Mahler’s
Third Symphony (Oct. 12-15). The women of the L.A. Master Chorale
and the L.A. Children’s Chorus join the musicians to fulfill
Mahler’s gargantuan performance requirements for one of the longest
symphonies ever composed.

Violinist Julian Rachlin appears with Salonen and the orchestra
to play Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto (Oct. 20-22). The program
also includes the Five Pieces for Orchestra by Arnold Schoenberg,
disciple of Mahler and contributor to the musical life of UCLA
during the middle of the century.

Another notable contributor to music at UCLA shares the program
with Salonen at the Philharmonic’s 75th anniversary concert. Zubin
Mehta led the orchestra in a legendary concert in front of Royce
Hall to protest the Vietnam War during his tenure as music
director.

He reunites with the orchestra Oct. 24 for a repetition of the
first program the Philharmonic played 75 years ago. Mehta opens the
concert Dvorák’s popular "New World" Symphony. Salonen takes
the helm for the second half of the evening, steering the orchestra
through Liszt’s "Les préludes," Weber’s beloved overture to
his opera "Oberon" and Chabrier’s vibrant symphonic poem
"España."

Acclaimed conductors Franz Welser-Möst and Simon Rattle
also appear with the orchestra in a season which brings some great
artists to Los Angeles

Opening night provided a good introduction to the season for
audiences who can look forward to exploring masterpieces from the
20th century.

CONCERT: L.A. Philharmonic conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen with
pianist Paul Crossley. At the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Oct. 6, 7
and 9. TIX: $50, $41, $36, $28, $22, $16, $9.50, $6. Students with
ID $6 two hours before performance.

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