MUSIC REVIEW : Previn Pairs Strauss Songs, ‘Belshazzar’

No one who was at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Nov. 5, 1981, will forget the night.

Carlo Maria Giulini, possibly the last and surely the most mellow of the great romantics, conducted a profoundly meditative, softly melancholic performance of Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs. Lucia Popp was the radiant soloist.

At the end, after the soprano embraced the twilight specter in her parting sigh, after the “Death and Transfiguration” motive rose majestically from the depths of the orchestra, after the distant larks added their trilling benediction, the music receded gently into inevitable silence.

The audience could not applaud for what seemed like an eternity. It was the ultimate tribute.

Thursday night, the Los Angeles Philharmonic turned again to Strauss’ poignant valedictory. History, alas, did not repeat itself. Significantly, push-button applause virtually coincided with the final cadence.

Don’t blame Roberta Alexander. The American soprano traced the long, arching, solo lines with generous, luminous tone, with innate dignity and simple pathos. She brought warmth, dynamic sensitivity and poetic insight to the autumnal texts of Hesse and Eichendorff.

Andre Previn, however, provided stubbornly prosaic accompaniment. It was loud--often much too loud--and it was primitive. One had the feeling that the conductor somehow was embarrassed by the emotional indulgence of the music and thus wanted to keep his distance. Ethereal challenges do not seem to bring out the best in him.

After intermission, he turned to the clangorous vitality--some might say vulgarity--of “Belshazzar’s Feast” by William Walton. This brought out the best in him.

One can argue that the biblical bombast of the British oratorio sounds particularly empty, even contrived, following the Strauss lieder. One cannot argue, however, about the clarity, the incisive attack or the propulsion of Previn’s reading. He remains a musical Anglophile to the core.

He persuaded the Philharmonic to play Walton with the finesse that had been lacking in the Strauss. The Los Angeles Master Chorale, trained by John Currie, sang with splendid precision and flexibility, if with insufficient power to compete with the mightiest orchestral outbursts.

John Shirley-Quirk brought a rather dry, somewhat diminished baritone but much dramatic authority to the narrative solos.

The oddly focused program had opened with Debussy’s “Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune.” Its languid shimmer was nicely observed and neatly projected.