DE WAART CONDUCTS : BOWL MARS ZIMERMAN’S BRAHMS

Krystian Zimerman is a pianist who can make a mighty noise. We all knew that.

But he didn’t make the mighty noise heard at the Hollywood Bowl Tuesday night. At least he didn’t make it alone.

In an essentially heroic performance of the D-minor Brahms Concerto with Edo de Waart and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Zimerman’s Steinway didn’t just roar and thunder. It crashed and blasted. It created vast sonic cataclysms. It rumbled and thudded with a fuzzy, ugly force that all but obliterated the orchestra.

The soloist obviously intended the opening Maestoso to be powerful. What emerged, however, was a bad deal more than that. It was brutal.

Clearly, he wanted the valedictory flourishes of the third movement to ring with fervor. What emerged was a grotesque distortion.

The vaunted Bowl amplification system, which had made Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony sound raucous and tinny earlier in this “greatest hit” program, must be at fault here. Oddly, however, the acoustical inequities encountered at the rear of the lower boxes did little to mar the delicate, pearly tones Zimerman produced in a particularly introspective Adagio.

This was a good night for pianos and pianissimos, a disastrous night for pianists and fortes.

If one could adjust to the sonic quirks, one still could take some comfort in traces of an always interesting if unorthodox performance. Zimerman’s dauntless passion brought with it some eccentric phrasing. With a pianist of this calibre, however, even eccentricities ring with authority.

Zimerman projects original ideas with uncommon authority and flair, cruel technological fates notwithstanding. He is much more than just a bravura specialist. Just when one wants to label him a brash firebrand, he revels in touches of poetry.

Perhaps next time. . . .

De Waart and the accompanying orchestra seemed appropriately inspired in matters of vigor and thrust. But, in addition to audibility problems, they had to contend with pitch problems in the cold night air.

In the “Pastoral,” the Dutch conductor stressed constant forward momentum, the inherent macho swagger compromised to a degree by delicate dynamic shading. This Beethoven was brisk though not brusque.

Before the concert began, the mellifluous voice of Gail Eichenthal on the P.A. system once again exhorted members of the audience not to smoke during the performances. Perhaps the management, always eager to enhance the aesthetic experience, should consider a comparable announcement requesting silence between movements. The 11,959 in attendance on this occasion applauded mechanically at every threat of a Luftpause .