MENDELSSOHN AND MAHLER : MUTTER JOINS RATTLE AND PHILHARMONIC AS SOLOIST

In November, 1968, when Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic introduced Mahler’s Sixth Symphony to the Pavilion of the Music Center, the orchestra had never before played that striking, noisy and complicated work.

Now, 19 years and more than a dozen performances later, the Sixth may have become a specialty of the Philharmonic. Judging from the polished and convincing reading it received from the orchestra Thursday night, under the judicious but aggressive leadership of Simon Rattle, specialty is exactly the right word.

The young British conductor, concluding a two-week visit to the Music Center podium, offered a rounded and comprehensive aural perspective on the extended but, in his view, clearly not sprawling, piece.

His decision to reverse the order of the Scherzo and Andante--according, he explained in a program insert, to Mahler’s own second thoughts on the matter--worked admirably. After the intricate musical manipulations and emotional hammer blows of the opening, that indisputably poignant slow movement came as a respite, a balm on the ears.

Rattle then let the Scherzo become a neutral ground for the listener in preparing to enter the battlefield of the finale, a place where idealism seems to be lost and cynicism wins out. The scheme worked.

Whether one admires Mahler’s Sixth or not, this performance showed the piece in its best light. Rattle’s pacing and sense of continuity were projected without effort, yet he slighted no details: inner voices, gradations of tempo, flashes of color and delicate balances--all emerged in view.

And the playing, after some brass fluffs in the opening movement, achieved genuine transparency and a Mahlerian lightness; Rattle managed to keep to a minimum the bombast one associates with this work. Among other purveyors of handsome solos, the orchestra’s recently appointed principal horn, Jerry Folsom, excelled.

In Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, which opened the program, Anne-Sophie Mutter returned to the Pavilion stage. A veteran at 23, the German musician, who made a belated debut with this orchestra two years ago, remains a paragon of violinistic virtue.

Her technique is seamless, her tone pure and capable of myriad colors, her sense of style impeccable. She gave a performance of the Mendelssohn Concerto that made it seem young again, its pristine lines fresh and impassioned, its melodies newly minted. Rattle’s careful accompaniment proved insouciant but reliable.