PERLMAN, PREVIN BACK AGAIN

Despite refrigerated air, the partnership of Andre Previn and Itzhak Perlman produced a surprisingly warm-hearted concert in Hollywood Bowl on Thursday night.

The massive turnout of 15,973 was probably mainly provoked by Perlman’s two appearances, in Dvorak’s Romance for violin and orchestra and in the Mendelssohn Concerto. But the substantial, even memorable, part of the evening was occasioned by Previn’s conducting of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations.

Perlman seemed to be making a determined effort to surmount the lethargy, or the well-worn habit, that sometimes afflicts his violin playing. The unfamiliar Dvorak piece, based on borrowings from the composer’s String Quartet in F, afforded the soloist the chance to sing straightforwardly and unaffectedly, with minor excursions of contrasting embellishment.

The Mendelssohn set a more difficult challenge--not of technique, but because its possibilities have so often been so thoroughly explored. Perlman made no attempt to personalize it by distortions or dislocations. He concentrated on directness and a warmth and generosity of tone that doesn’t always interest him. And he jollied up the finale not by speeding but by clarity and control. It could all pass as a definitive performance.

The perennial beauties of Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations stirred Previn to an involved reading that generated warmth and light in equal measure. It savored the ingenuities of instrumentation, the suave lyricism, the genteel outbursts of drama and the general Britishness of it all. The performance was a credit to both conductor and orchestra.