PREVIN CONDUCTS : PHILHARMONIC OPENS MUSIC CENTER SEASON

On paper, the season-opening program of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Thursday evening seemed earnest, and even grim. It promised clear and rigorous compositional thinking and the whole gamut of darker emotions, leavened only occasionally with warmth and light.

In sound, most of those stern promises were fulfilled. But ultimately the concert proved much more balanced than might have been anticipated; it was a substantial, galvanic, heartening, thoroughly rewarding musical experience.

Music director Andre Previn’s program originally consisted of just two granitic elements, Brahms’ Fourth Symphony and Shostakovich’s 10th, both in E minor. Thursday, however, it began with the “Nimrod” variation from Elgar’s “Enigma Variations”--a smoothly played, sincerely felt tribute to the late Robert Cowart, the Philharmonic’s English horn player of many years.

In its outpouring of effusive nostalgia, “Nimrod” also served as a fortuitously perfect foil and preamble to Previn’s measured account of the Brahms. Previn conducted the familiar rites with a restraint that gained much nobility in contrast with the Elgarian sentiment.

If there was a suspicion of abstraction in Previn’s Brahms, his sweeping, clarifying interpretation of the Shostakovich symphony hit hard on all levels. His vision did full justice to the overt, manic-depressive drama, and undergirded it with a firmly focused, forward-looking authority.

Shostakovich begins on notes of chill, quiet doom, and moves progressively through austere pessimism, shouting anger, and biting sarcasm before bursting into stridently braying triumph. But throughout there are hints of the brighter things to come, which Previn illuminated in subtle ways that made the finale seem inevitable only when it finally arrived.

The Philharmonic played for Previn with controlled vigor and precision, clearly recovered from the slackness of the final weeks at Hollywood Bowl. The orchestra also has a new look on stage, with tiered risers elevating the back three rows of the strings as well as the winds and percussion.

That certainly limited the view of the orchestra from the far sides of the audience, at least in the front rows. But if such an amphitheater arrangement helps the players to better hear each other, or see Previn, restricted sight lines are a small price to pay. The taut, vibrant Philharmonic performance--some fleeting moments of woodwind incoherency excepted--suggested that it does.