MUSIC REVIEW : Mariss Jansons, Juliana Markova at Wiltern

It’s not that Tchaikovsky needs a boost--his works remain universally popular whether played in a concert hall or for Hollywood Bowl picnics. But with a proselytizer like Mariss Jansons to justify the Russian composer’s high rating, the excellence quotient booms as well.

No less did it rise for the Friday finale of a week-long Tchaikovsky Festival than for the three preceding concerts staged by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, all of them delivered at the Wiltern Theatre.

In fact, it takes a conductor the caliber of Jansons to point out that Tchaikovsky is not merely a slideshow of tears, coquetry, martial Technicolor and cartoonish pomposity--something to be dealt with picture by picture. Even while accompanying soloist Juliana Markova in the First Piano Concerto, Jansons advanced a wholly integrated view.

Unfortunately, the Bulgarian pianist failed to join him in this regard. Markova geared up for each episode, but then let concentration lapse until the next moment beckoned. While she produced some nicely Slavic insinuations, along with a certain worldly mellowness, her percussive attacks turned clangorous and clinker-ridden--in part because it takes greater muscular strength and wholeness of concept to assimilate vehement fortes into the musical fabric.

After intermission, Jansons turned to the Fourth Symphony, compelling attention with his full-blown view of Tchaikovsky. Clearly, this music means something more to him than an opportunity for glorious extroversion. And quite distinct from modern maestros whose streamlined accounts seldom leave the emotional blueprint intact, he not only located, he emboldened it.

The Philharmonic projected remarkable lyric expressivity and sounded like an ensemble that understood why the brooding depths of this music are linked inextricably to its cries of the heart, its grace, its grandeur. Jansons drew from our orchestra a dimension and breadth of sound rarely heard in Tchaikovsky performances.