MUSIC REVIEW : Sanderling’s Second Philharmonic Program

In prospect, a program pairing Haydn’s Symphony in C, No. 82, with Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony must seem a study in opposites, yoking creatures of light and darkness on behalf of a quirky, large-scale chiaroscuro.

But the experience of this agenda Thursday night in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, as Kurt Sanderling’s second program with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, revealed unexpected parallels. The contrasts were there, to be sure, but so were shadowy, oddly interactive symmetries.

Shostakovich’s 15th--finished in 1971, four years before his death, and heard here in its belated Philharmonic premiere--is a portentous, quotation-burdened Mahlerian massif. Sanderling took the unusual step of requesting the use of an essay on it by Hans Bitterlich as the printed program note.

Bitterlich, however, explains nothing, in a metaphysical gush that may have lost something in translation. Contenting himself with pointing out the sonically obvious, Bitterlich refuses to believe Shostakovich capable of bitter irony, and dismisses the first three movements as merely preludes to the finale.

Little of the printed description could be heard in Sanderling’s powerful, purposeful reading. Sanderling’s aural reasoning, set forth expressively but without indulgence, illuminated Shostakovich’s overtly philosophical--and yes, bitterly ironic--characteristically death-obsessed, latter-years music.

In the context of the finale, as developed by Sanderling, the conjunction of the Prediction of Death motif from “Die Walkure” and the Yearning motif from “Tristan und Isolde” was not at all antithetical, the bittersweet transformation of the Yearning theme from minor to major mode indicating a welcome consummation of death. The strangely ticking, enigmatic percussion denouement seemed the final winding-down of machine-age man.

Haydn’s first movement goes up in a burst of Mannheim rockets and fanfares, driven by much the same motor impulses as with Shostakovich, but in joy rather than anger. In the middle movements, Sanderling stressed formality and restraint.

In the finale, Haydn does not turn to direct quotation as Shostakovich did, but to something equivalent in the shape of a bumptious musette. Haydn transforms the sharp accents of the drone into menacing moments, revealing a dark underside that Sanderling projected as vividly as the bucolic glee.

These works, representing opposite ends of the central symphonic tradition, are both uncommonly difficult. The Philharmonic did well by its guest maestro and his composers, whether scaled down for lean, elegantly lithe Haydn or in the kaleidoscopic scoring of Shostakovich.

In the latter, concertmaster Alexander Treger led the numerous capable solo contributions with gleaming tone and stylish nuance.