OHLSSON PLAYS RACHMANINOFF 4TH : LEONARD SLATKIN LEADS PHILHARMONIC AT BOWL

There have been worse nights at Hollywood Bowl. There certainly have been better nights.

Tuesday, to the push-button delight of 7,850 conspicuous consumers, Leonard Slatkin took his place in our never-ending parade of guest conductors under the stars. To commemorate the return of this rising native, the Los Angeles Philharmonic management scheduled an almost ho-hum program surveying a Verdi overture, a Rachmaninoff concerto and a Berlioz potboiler.

Almost ho-hum? The qualifier is necessary because the concerto in question didn’t happen to be “Full Moon and Empty Arms” but the seldom-heard Fourth--offered as another installment in the current Rachmaninoff festival. If nothing else, Slatkin and his soloist, Garrick Ohlsson, reminded us why it is seldom heard.

The Fourth represents Rachmaninoff at his most garbled. The concerto veers from slush-pump excess to melodic stammering, hides its poverty of ideas behind harmonic goo, makes the pianist work very hard and repays him very little for his efforts.

The composer finished the first version of this gnarled exercise in romantic twaddle and dawdle in 1927. No fool when it came to realistic self-appraisal, he revised it in 1938 and again in 1941. No avail.

The Philharmonic forces performed dutifully, although inspiration was in understandably short supply. Ohlsson roared, crashed, rippled and thumped at the keyboard, sometimes with amazing finesse and sometimes without. Slatkin tried to keep the sprawl neat. The orchestra, just back from a week’s vacation, sounded tired.

In the overture to Verdi’s “Les Vepres Siciliennes,” Slatkin first stretched tempos nearly to the breaking point, then dashed for a boffo finale. The orchestra didn’t invariably keep pace.

Matters improved somewhat after intermission in Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique.” One could recall more lyrical performances, more dramatic performances, more eloquent performances. One could recall less nervous and less fussy performances. Nevertheless, one had to admire the clarity, fluidity and detail of Slatkin’s reading.