MUSIC REVIEW : Simon Rattle Returns to L.A. Philharmonic Podium

A new year: new beginnings, new perspectives. New programs? Not exactly, but the agenda with which Simon Rattle and the Los Angeles Philharmonic began 1988, Friday night in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center, was at least provocative.

It alternated works by Beethoven and Stravinsky: the three “Leonore” Overtures, performed in numerical order, and the Concerto for Piano and Winds and the Symphony in Three Movements, given in chronological order.

The program proved bracing, its manner of execution often neat and committed. Returning for his annual midwinter stand with the orchestra, principal guest conductor Rattle brought his usual jaunty podium manner and probing mind to this smartly concocted program, for which British pianist Peter Donohoe was the soloist. And, on Friday night at least, a festive audience seemed to be enjoying itself thoroughly.

Lining up the three overtures as he did, Rattle delivered, if not too much Beethoven, then perhaps more “Leonores” than one might wish to hear in one sitting.

The bonus was the chance to hear in this sequence the composer’s progression of thought in expanding his musical ideas up to the point, in the Third Overture, where the final version of the work had outgrown its function as a curtain-raiser.

As this set of performances turned out, the most interest, energy and probably rehearsal-time seemed to have gone into that crucial and triumphant No. 3. For all their nice moments, Rattle’s readings of Nos. 1 and 2 also offered more than their share of ragged and fuzzy details, as well as unaligned attacks. A high point: Donald Green’s splendid playing of the off-stage trumpet solos in “Leonore” No. 3.

Rattle’s realization of the ascetic and witty Symphony in Three Movements also revealed tighter focus and more careful detailing than his more loose-jointed way with the Concerto; in the later (and latter) piece, contrasts stood out independently, and the structure of the whole seemed to assert itself.

Still, in both works, a number of expertly delineated solo lines from within the orchestra emerged confidently. And Donohoe’s energetic, if in moments impersonal, storming of the protagonist’s part did a lot toward carrying the performance forward to its irresistible conclusion. One regretted only the placement of Donohoe’s piano, upstage from the Pavilion apron and, consequently, less well-projected (i.e., more muffled) to his listeners.