MUSIC REVIEW : Jarvi Leads Two Orchestras

A serious conductor with a clear sense of mission, Neeme Jarvi returned to the podium of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and led a bracing performance of an old-fashioned Hollywood Bowl program: Sibelius’ “Finlandia” for an overture, the same composer’s Second Symphony as finale, the two separated by Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto.

If this was a bag of chestnuts, there were some satisfactions in the roasting, Tuesday night.

Jarvi, who closed the Philharmonic’s most recent winter season with Sibelius’ Second--in a respectable but unvisceral reading--this time around coaxed from the orchestra considerably more heat, genuine structural cohesion and a higher energy level. That level may or may not have been connected to the fact that the Philharmonic was augmented to almost double its size by the participation of the 90-plus musicians of the summertime Philharmonic Institute Orchestra.

The old standard seemed restored to its former glories in this well-driven, fully resonant--but never strident--and virtually immaculate performance. Much of the credit must go to the Philharmonic and Institute players, naturally, but Jarvi apparently didn’t give them much choice. He made the familiar work glow with urgency.

He and the combined orchestras achieved a lower plane of inspiration in “Finlandia,” a work that seems to thwart all attempts to shape its contrasting parts into an integrated whole. All hands worked hard on this attempt; the results were only momentarily thrilling.

That was unfortunate because, in a moving speech before “Finlandia,” Jarvi had dedicated the performance to the memory of Martti Talvela, the Finnish singer who died over the weekend.

The thrills in Rachmaninoff’s overfamiliar C-minor Concerto were also not numerous. Accompanied attentively by Jarvi and the Philharmonic alone, pianist Barry Douglas showed none of the colorful temperament that had characterized his playing of Tchaikovsky’s most popular concerto last summer in this same setting.

Instead, he labored, apparently, trying to bring new wrinkles to its well-known profile and got in his own way doing so.

All the notes appeared to be in all the right places but, in the place of song and fluency, Douglas substituted declamation and superfluous detailing. Where one would have wished for a stroll over a familiar landscape, one got a halting and bumpy ride. The result of too much thinking became too little music.

Attendance: 10,929.