MUSIC REVIEW : BLOMSTEDT CONDUCTS PHILHARMONIC

Five days short of four years since his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut, Herbert Blomstedt returned to the podium of that orchestra last week to give another elegant demonstration of his art. As always, it was instructive.

In these years, the longtime (and continuing) conductor of the Dresden State Orchestra has not been idle.

He has conducted here, of course, both in Hollywood Bowl and in the Pavilion of the Music Center, and has continued to serve as guest conductor with a number of European and American symphonic ensembles. Most important, he has been named music director-elect of the San Francisco Symphony; his tenure in the Bay City begins in September.

As heard at the Friday matinee performance, Blomstedt’s latest Philharmonic program--made up merely of the Cello Concerto by Antonin Dvorak and Richard Strauss’ “Eine Alpensinfonie”--confirmed what we already knew: That the 57-year old conductor, whose appearance is lean and businesslike, elicits taut and efficient readings from our not-always-disciplined orchestra; that he remains a Straussian of considerable expertise; and that his credentials as an accompanist qualify him to sit--or, more properly, to stand--among the elite.

Blomstedt’s positive collaboration with Ronald Leonard, his soloist in the Dvorak Concerto, resulted in a glorious but never overstated performance. Both musicians--Leonard is, of course, the Philharmonic’s popular principal cellist--approached the familiar work with fresh ears; they let it sing without affectation, and they let it speak in its own timbres.

This reading had a charm and an honesty the work does not always receive, as well as all the requisite technical brilliance. Leonard produced beautiful sounds consistently, yet in the process neglected neither the linearity nor the dramatic gestures of the overall statement. For its part, the Philharmonic played with a surprising sheen of transparency one might not expect at this point in a long season.

As Sergiu Comissiona did last summer at Hollywood Bowl, Blomstedt and the Philharmonic on Friday made the “Alpine Symphony” an occasion of pleasure.

Now, this work has been called many things--gross, meretricious and a mountain of musical landfill, among others--but never great. A masterpiece it ain’t.

But, carefully laid out and paced, painted with pure and virtuosic instrumental colors, bejeweled with loving solos and kept within dynamic bounds, it can show off an orchestra most advantageously.

And so it did, last week, when Blomstedt and the Philharmonic, though never achieving the softest passages of which the orchestra is capable, approached the loudest, but without raucousness. The brass choir, expanded to Straussian proportions, never lost its core of round tone; the strings gleamed, purred or sang out, as required; the woodwinds displayed bright, individual and special mellowness.

Most impressive, a tangible continuity characterized the total, a continuity emanating incontrovertibly from the podium, where Blomstedt, looking innocent and uncalculating, presided.