Music and Dance Reviews : Philharmonic Premieres Shapero Overture

The Los Angeles Philharmonic had some revelations--not all of them anticipated--in store at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Friday evening. To begin with there was a program change: the West Coast premiere of Harold Shapero’s “Nine-Minute Overture” replaced Bartok’s Dance Suite.

The occasion was a live recording of the Overture, destined to accompany Shapero’s “Symphony for Classical Orchestra,” which the Philharmonic will record this week.

As the composer acknowledges, the 1940 work owes much to Piston, and not a little to Stravinsky. Its student origins, however, are not apparent in its consummate, neo-classic craftsmanship and vigor.

Even at nine minutes, the Overture has considerable compositional redundancy, minimized by bold, variegated scoring. Andre Previn and the Philharmonic capitalized on it with both finesse and barricade-storming power.

The very full orchestra of the Overture then left the stage to the small forces of the 14-year-old Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin, Piano and Strings, with soloists Sidney and Jeanne Weiss. The Concerto has much adolescent energy and sentiment but, even with cuts made by the Weisses, overstays its welcome. The mock-fugatos of the first movement go nowhere, and at almost every point for the soloists, lengthy scales substitute for development.

The Weisses played their etude-like passage-work with clarity and unanimity, though pianist Jeanne was always too deferential dynamically. Previn and Co. neatly framed their elegant, fluent efforts.

A big, clean, occasionally overly deliberate but ultimately persuasive account of Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra capped the evening.