MUSIC REVIEW : Sanderling Leads Philharmonic

Kurt Sanderling, the widely admired East German conductor, makes music the old-fashioned way, as a palpable act of re-creative will. His stocky figure positively exudes authority and purpose.

Unlike some of the legendary podium tyrants of the past, however, he seems to work with the orchestra, rather than upon it.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic, at any rate, responds to his ministrations with alacrity and affection. Thursday evening at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Sanderling and the resident band continued their romance, begun four years ago, in the first performance of a two-week stint.

A Sanderling program seldom promises repertory adventures. Thursday’s characteristic, traditionally Germanocentric agenda proved no exception.

What Sanderling does with his familiar material, though, is sweep and clean away all the cobwebs of lazy routine. The effect is a remarkable freshening and revitalization, and a clarifying of details that had become blurred with repetition.

In the first two movements of Brahms’ Second Symphony, Sanderling emphasized restraint, edging towards an austere melancholy in the adagio. He didn’t ignore the dynamism of the music, but kept it from leaping in unthinking athleticism.

When he released the scherzo then, the exuberance was almost overwhelming. A sense of eager exploration continued into the finale, where Sanderling welcomed every twist of the score with confidence, steering a sure and purposeful course without imposing an arbitrary narrowness.

The Philharmonic played alertly. Sanderling seemed to favor the winds on this occasion, in secondary lines as well as solos, and the players gave him willing--if not entirely pristine--service, in a bright, muscular performance.

Soviet pianist Elizo Virzaladze nearly stole Sanderling’s show, in the expressive vehicle of Mozart’s E-flat Concerto, K. 482. She spun out even passage work, balancing fluentinterpretive joys with technical poise. She probed, deeply but without exaggeration, in the andante, and reveled in the bubbly brio of the finale.

The sweet Hummel cadenzas Virzaladze played seemed insubstantial in context. She connected with her listeners in very real way, though, and offered them an encore--a gentle Romance, attributed not entirely believably to Mozart.

Sanderling led a reduced Philharmonic without a baton, in this case, looking at times as though he were playing patty-cake with an invisible partner. The winds here often sounded thick and blatant, and the off-beat game in the finale lacked absolute precision. But the accompaniment nonetheless framed Virzaladze’s effort attractively.

The concert began with a quiet, slowly blossoming playing of the Act I Prelude from “Lohengrin.”