FLOR CONDUCTS : WEISS REVIVES KORNGOLD CONCERTO

Erich Wolfgang Korngold isn’t exactly a popular composer these days. But he had his day, and--who knows?--he may again.

As a Viennese boy wonder in the early decades of the century, he won the praises of Mahler, Richard Strauss and Puccini--all of whom he emulated.

His operatic chef d’oeuvre , “Die Tote Stadt,” created something of an international sensation in the 1920s. Two of his film scores, “Robin Hood” and “Anthony Adverse,” won, and deserved, Academy Awards.

Wilhelm Furtwaengler introduced Korngold’s Symphonic Serenade (1950). None less than Jascha Heifetz was the first to play his D-major Violin Concerto (1945).

At the time of his death in 1957, however, the composer was regarded in most quarters as a quaint anachronism. After all, he wrote unabashedly lush, sensual, romantic, easily digested music in a world dominated by fashionably harsh, essentially cerebral serialism and/or atonality.

Compounding his aesthetic sins, Korngold had sold out to Hollywood. Who could take a composer seriously if he wrote for the candy-munching masses and, even worse, got paid handsomely for his efforts?

For many years, Korngold was deemed too corny--or too corn-syrupy--for the serious musical diet. Then, in the 1970s, the New York City Opera revived “Die Tote Stadt.” A major recording followed. The Deutsche Oper Berlin staged the same melodramatic opus in the 1980s and even brought the fancy production to Los Angeles.

Now, perhaps, it is time for the first Violin Concerto. Wednesday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Claus Peter Flor revived it as a vehicle for the orchestra’s intrepid concertmaster, Sidney Weiss.

Weiss is only a mortal. He could not efface memories of the superhuman Heifetz’s recording.

Nevertheless, our resident hero played brilliantly on his own terms, with pervasively sweet tone, calm bravura, expressive elegance, total mastery of the technical knots and, most important, with taste tempering obvious affection for the sentimental sprawl.

The listener’s affection for the concerto must depend, to a degree, on his or her tolerance for expressive gush and goo.

Korngold was, without question, a superb craftsman. His old-fashioned concerto is knowingly orchestrated, carefully balanced, clever in its appropriation of movie tunes and heroic in scale. There are moments of affecting lyricism, passages pf piquant harmonic progression, bold bang-’em-over-the-head climaxes. The showpiece certainly serves as a grateful vehicle for a fiddling virtuoso.

Nevertheless, it drips. And when it doesn’t drip, it oozes.

Restraint was not Korngold’s forte. Nor was originality. He was a master of overstatement, a champion of the easy effect, a stubborn proponent of sentimental indulgence and decorative glitz.

Nevertheless, the concerto conveys undoubted charm as a period piece, even when it cloys. It certainly is worth hearing once in a while. The Philharmonic had last ventured it in 1953. At that rate, it should return again in 34 years. To an aficionado who must limit his intake of musical calories, that seems about right.

Flor and the orchestra provided Weiss with appreciative support.

The little-known maestro from East Germany, whose only previous appearances here took place at Hollywood Bowl in 1985, opened the program with an exaggerated performance of Weber’s “Freischuetz” overture and closed it with an exaggerated performance of Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony.

He proved his flair in both works, but tended to compromise the wonted impact with needlessly slow tempos, needlessly fast tempos, heavy accents, fussy details and a general dissipation of tension.

He seems more interested in musical trees than in forests. But he is obviously talented, and, at 33, still young.