MUSIC REVIEW : ZINMAN AND GOLABEK AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL

A lot of things have to balance out to raise a Hollywood Bowl concert above the average: The music has to be agreeable, the performances must qualify and the sound system and weather must cooperate.

Enough of these factors were present Thursday night to credit the concert by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with being one of the season’s better efforts.

The music was thrice--or 100 times--familiar and it was conveyed with rather exceptional spontaneity.

The weather was cold--more than cool--and for the earlier part of the evening the dampness was conservative. Yet by the time Mona Golabek had finished with Grieg’s Piano Concerto, her Steinway was as soggy as a wet sponge. The sound system, as heard from the rear of the garden boxes, took all this in stride.

It was nice to hear the Grieg treated as something more than a student requirement. Golabek combined boldness and sensitivity in her approach. She discovered significant little nuances that personalized her playing, and she commanded virtuosity without forcing the slender matter out of its natural frame. You could hardly ask for a more complete performance, and David Zinman led the orchestra in an accommodating accompaniment.

Before the heavier dampness set in, Zinman conducted Kodaly’s “Dances From Galanta” with superior crispness and rhythmic elan. The woodwind soloists in particular distinguished themselves.

Zinman’s way with Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” was likewise alert, a bit more efficient than pictorial, and rather too straight to elicit the humor that sometimes makes an audience chuckle. The conception sided more with Wagner than Ravel, with Mussorgsky a somewhat passive onlooker.

Attendance: 10,525.