MUSIC REVIEW : Briton Brings Muncheners to Pavilion

It was a strange concert Monday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. As part of a major American tour, a fine British conductor led a mediocre German orchestra in a cautious program of Russian and Finnish music.

So much for national identities, stylistic cliches and lofty standards.

In the distant past, German orchestras could be expected to specialize in German music. Authenticity and tradition demanded that.

In those days, German orchestras sounded like German orchestras. They made thick, tough tones, they savored dynamic contrasts and they luxuriated in swollen rhetoric. Invariably, they were led and trained by Germanic musicians.

The world has, of course, changed. It has shrunk. The conventional boundaries that have not disappeared have, at the very least, blurred.

The Bavarian Radio Orchestra--which, for unknown reasons, calls itself the Bavarian Symphony when it invades the New World--is reputedly the best of Munich’s three major instrumental ensembles. It has played a broad, eclectic repertory since 1949 for many guest conductors and a succession of three music directors: Eugen Jochum, Rafael Kubelik and, now, Sir Colin Davis.

Measured by current American ideals, it has problems. The brass tend toward the raucous. The winds can be nasal. The strings are notable neither for silky tone nor for precision.

Still, the Muncheners play with solidity, warmth and spirit. Call them gemutlich.

The most compelling item on their introductory agenda here turned out to be a curio: Sibelius’ Seventh Symphony (1924). It is a rather gnarled and convoluted study in decaying romanticism. Despite its brevity, it often gets bogged down in detail. It resists expressive catharsis and doesn’t seem to want to end--or know how.

Still, it abounds in original touches, makes much of brooding imagery and organic fluidity. It reveals the composer as a master of the subtle coloristic effect. Davis, ever tasteful and ever probing, brought the inventive elements into careful focus without halting momentum or dissipating tension.

After intermission, this essentially introspective musician--a specialist in Mozart, Britten and Berlioz--defied typecasting. Dauntlessly (or perversely), he explored the splashy surface devices and vulgar climaxes of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” as orchestrated by Ravel. He scored the usual points with decent brio. When necessary, the orchestra made a mighty noise.

If we have to hear this showpiece one more time, however, we’d rather hear it with a more extrovert conductor and a more brilliant orchestra. This trip just wasn’t necessary.

The concert had opened with Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto. Davis and his players provided plodding accompaniment for the competent but perfunctory, small-scale performance of Dmitry Sitkovetsky. Even the ethereal Andante refused to soar.

Perhaps everyone was happier on Tuesday when the orchestra turned to the stylistic safety of Brahms and Beethoven. Meanwhile, Los Angeles can contemplate the visit of the Munich Philharmonic in April. The rival Bavarians are scheduled to offer Mozart, Bruckner and Brahms in the potentially controversial manner of their Romanian music director, Sergiu Celibidache.