MUSIC REVIEW : Slatkin Conducts Philharmonic in Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony

Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony, for decades a specialty of the Los Angeles Philharmonic--especially in the halcyon days of Zubin Mehta’s early tenure with the orchestra--made a remarkable impact when Leonard Slatkin conducted the Philharmonic Thursday night at Hollywood Bowl.

The familiar piece achieved this impact through the most natural and undevious of means: an uncomplicated girding of the work’s structure, clear instrumental balances, an aggressive and direct approach to songfulness.

Whatever Slatkin may do in rehearsal, on the podium he appears benign and unruffled. He worries not; neither does he sweat. His leadership of the Philharmonic in the penultimate program of his latest visit here showed the music director of the St. Louis Symphony as relaxed as he was effective.

The irresistible music of this longish work seemed inevitably to flow, its forward motion unimpeded by excessive thought or conductorial tampering. It was gorgeous. The players made it happen, of course, but they were guided by Slatkin’s calm and light hand.

More bite there was, as more bite there ought to be, in Ravel’s G-major Piano Concerto, as pointedly and jazzily revived by the 21-year-old Finn, Olli Mustonen, clearly a musician with ideas as well as articulate fingers.

There are certainly more insinuating, colorful and subtle ways to play this concerto--we hear them several times in every musical season--but Mustonen’s aggressive stance proved nonetheless convincing and reminded us of the violence just beneath the surface of Ravel’s sophistication. Slatkin and the Philharmonic provided strong assistance.

Similarly bracing was the conductor’s breezy run-through of Weber’s “Oberon” Overture, an almost breathless reading that displayed, more graphically than any committee report, how virtuosic our Philharmonic can be, on a normal night at Hollywood Bowl and under the right, commanding leader.

Attendance: 7,016.