MUSIC REVIEW : FISCHER, BRONFMAN WITH PHILHARMONIC AT BOWL

During the current season at Hollywood Bowl the Los Angeles Philharmonic has been just about everything an orchestra can be--except first-class.

All that changed drastically Thursday night when Ivan Fischer, a rising young Hungarian conductor, came on to lead Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra. Conditions were more or less the same as they have been all summer: Arctic breezes, damp atmosphere, unpredictable amplification.

But suddenly, by the wave of a seemingly magic baton, the Philharmonic was upgraded. Fischer took total command. The mushy sound became clear and focused. The rhythms emerged dazzlingly precise and sharply sculpted. The most subtle nuances were tossed about from section to section with striking consistency. Each phrase was turned with innate artistry.

The conductor didn’t merely turn in a thorough cleanup job. He aimed directly at the heart of Bartok’s fabulous score. The wondrous ingenuities of instrumentation, the originality of expressiveness, the logic, the complicated structure were all displayed like gleaming gems.

Here was virtuoso conducting and playing. Fischer reminded one of the young Georg Solti when that conductor first began his visits here in the 1950s. Fischer seems headed for the same distinction.

After the program had opened with a vertiginous “Russlan and Ludmilla” Overture, Yefim Bronfman played Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, with Fischer’s finely adjusted accompaniment that foreshadowed the Bartok.

Bronfman had traversed it here before, and the general impression on this occasion was that the pianist had broadened and matured.

He had almost enough power, and quite enough singing tone and keyboard dexterity. But his reading fell into neatly wrought fragments. It was pleasant, but the epic sweep, the emotional upheaval never quite took over. The Third will forever remain Horowitz’s piece. It will take another Horowitz to demolish Horowitz.

Attendance: 7,994.