PRESEASON OPENER : DAVID ZINMAN CONDUCTS AT BOWL

Not much was strikingly different from last year or the year before that at the opening of the Hollywood Bowl preview season Wednesday night.

A silver moon looked down benignly, the new warning beacons successfully held aerial intruders at bay and, although lighted candles had been proscribed, a few fugitive flames still flickered among the picnickers. The new redwood siding gave the boxes a freshly manufactured look and the new canvas director’s chairs looked inviting, but were every bit as uncomfortable as the old ones.

These were all minor details, of course. The idea of the preview concerts is to offer music at reduced prices and greater availability of desirable seats. The program, naturally, was aimed at popularity. And what could be more popular than a Russian program of hoary favorites?

The Los Angeles Philharmonic was conducted by David Zinman, the American-born music director of the Baltimore Symphony, to whose lot fell the overture to Glinka’s “Russlan and Ludmilla” and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony.

More genuine excitement was engendered by Jeffrey Kahane’s piano playing in Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. In past hearings Kahane had impressed as a pianist of the ultra-refined type. This time his playing abounded in effortless virtuosity and temperamental ebullience. There have been grander performances of the piece, but few more judiciously musical; the well-loved 18th Variation sang meltingly.

If the color range was rather limited, it could have been the fault of the unruly amplification that throughout the evening magnified unimportant details and diminished important ones. Kahane’s Falcone piano may also have shared the responsibility. The instrument, built by the small Boston-based company that produces 120 annually, is not one able to cope with busy orchestral competition.

Tchaikovsky’s Fifth does not so much sort out the men from the boys as it separates the stoics and the crybabies. Zinman’s version pleased with its modest restraint, its lack of wild-eyed exaggeration and its controlled proportions, though the amplification often wrought havoc with the best intentions. It was the work of an experienced routinier, respectable if not deeply stirring. The orchestra followed the conductor’s demands amiably.

Attendance: 7,330.