MUSIC, PERFORMANCE ART REVIEWS : PREVIN BACK ON PODIUM

Five weeks after the Los Angeles Philharmonic opened its 1986-87 season, Andre Previn returned to his post of music director/conductor, in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Thursday night.

For the occasion, he chose pieces that looked inviting on paper but which failed to whip up any great waves of enthusiasm. There were gaping spaces of empty seats in the main floor when the concert opened, and the number increased after intermission.

Though Previn conducted and presented himself as a composer, this was not a showcase program. It was thoughtfully and earnestly put together, and dutifully executed, but sparks did not shower down.

Previn’s “Principals,” composed in 1980 for the 10th anniversary season of Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, was first heard here last summer in Hollywood Bowl.

“Principals” is a piece in which more responsibility rests upon the players than upon the conductor. The title refers to the first desk soloists of the orchestra, each of whom seem to bear no strong relation to the main argument. The argument, when it develops, is skillfully orchestrated, and is inclined to meditate on Shostakovich models. The solo players made the most of their chances and the audience reacted favorably.

It may be that a completely adequate concerto for viola is impossible. The one written by Sir William Walton in 1929 has long served as a surrogate, but even when played as elegantly as it was by Heiichiro Ohyama, the Philharmonic’s first violist, the solo instrument is short-changed.

Whenever the composer wants the viola to be heard, he reduces the orchestra to next to nothing; when he wants to show his skill as an orchestrator, the orchestra overwhelms the viola.

Ohyama did the best he could with the task: His tone was warm and mellow--though slender in size--his way with the wistful themes ingratiating and his technique wholly reliable.

To an extent, the cantata that Prokofiev made from his score for Sergei Eisenstein’s film “Alexander Nevsky” achieved the big noise Previn was aiming for. The Los Angeles Master Chorale sang very loudly in Russian, but with very little contrast. When the single solo voice rose high enough in range, the rich mezzo of Christine Cairns lent the requisite mournfulness. Previn extracted some blatant as well as some sensitive playing from the Philharmonic.

But the truth is that the work is second-rate Prokofiev, neither very moving nor very picturesque, and scrappy in structure. The valiant efforts of the performers were not exactly wasted, but neither could they elevate the work to any great degree of eloquence.