Music Reviews : Edo de Waart Leads L.A. Philharmonic

In these complacent days, when the major concerto repertory seems to be shrinking, we must be grateful for small adventures, and Silvia Marcovici gave us a grand one Thursday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Her galvanic account of Bartok’s Second Violin Concerto was the centerpiece of an eccentric, engaging program by Edo de Waart and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The Second is a much more public work than Bartok’s First Violin Concerto--which in a happy coincidence Jaime Laredo played just the week before in Long Beach--and Marcovici did it in a very public way. Playing from the score, she seized her listeners immediately, with a deep-throated, dramatic entrance, and did not let go in a restless, surging performance.

The most sublime moment. however, came in a beautifully poised, elastic statement of the middle movement theme. Marcovici built the ensuing variations into an imposing monument to both virtuosity and musicality.

De Waart and the Philharmonic provided cohesive, pointed accompaniment, appropriately combative at times, and always colorful and well-balanced.

Now the music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, De Waart brought with him “A Center Harbor Holiday” by University of Minnesota professor Eric Stokes. A jamboree of pictorial sounds and quotations in the Ives manner, Stoke’s tone poem becomes increasingly gimmick-ridden, with snatches of radio broadcasts and a flag-waving--literally--finale.

The orchestra handled it with assurance, though the flag-waving seemed somewhat abashed in several quarters. Roger Bobo played the attractive, lyrical tuba solo with wonderfully burnished, room-filling sound.

After intermission, De Waart brought out a big, muscular, fast-paced account of Beethoven’s Second Symphony for the full band--no fussing with period style here. It was more than a little blunt and coarse--in the playing as well, occasionally tripped up by De Waart’s tempos and abrupt transitions--but undeniably dramatic, if not for all the right reasons.