Philharmonic retools an old favorite

Audiophiles -- an endangered species in the iPod era -- used to dote on Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” whose “Sunrise” opening was supposed to be the ultimate test of bass response. “Zarathustra” was also a specialty of the house for the Los Angeles Philharmonic when Zubin Mehta ruled the podium; the orchestra’s recording of the piece still generates shock waves, and it’s still around in a number of Decca CD editions.

So some who remembered that LP came to Walt Disney Concert Hall on Friday night hoping to hear the Philharmonic recapture the old thrills in a new locale. At first, they would not have been disappointed. When Joanne Pearce Martin hit that subterranean pedal note on the organ at the beginning of the piece (the organ part seemed unusually prominent in this performance), it sent a deliciously satisfying flood of vibrations up and down our collective spine -- and the climax soon after exploded in splendid detail.

But as Mehta well knew, there is far more to “Zarathustra” than just the opening two minutes. The conductor here was Ivan Fischer, Hungarian, a cooler customer than Mehta in this repertoire, less concerned with building overwhelming tension and release and more with exposing the rainbow of detail built into the piece. Everything sparkled and shimmered in the transparency of Disney Hall’s acoustics. Yet the performance seemed to give in to the temptation of losing itself in all that color while sacrificing propulsion and power.

As to the other war horse on the bill, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, it can sometimes seem that we need another rendition the way the Hollywood Freeway needs more big rigs. But at least violinist Christian Tetzlaff had the enterprise to come up with a different take in one respect. Beethoven never wrote cadenzas for his violin concerto, but he did for the rarely played piano-orchestra transcription (sometimes known as his “Piano Concerto No. 6”) -- and Tetzlaff reduced and adapted them idiomatically for his instrument. These cadenzas are quirkier than the usual ones by Joachim, Kreisler, etc., especially the lengthy first movement one that turns into a militant march-like duo for violin and -- yes -- timpani.

Elsewhere, Tetzlaff immersed himself in a lot of micromanaging of nuance and dynamics, though not in a fussy way, and he and Fischer pulled off some impressively sustained quiet passages in the second movement.

With a chamber-sized setup of strings, Fischer led off the concert with a short, ethereal piece that he introduced to the Philharmonic in 2005, Dvorak’s Nocturne in B, executed with pinpoint control of rubato.