MUSIC REVIEW : Previn Opens Philharmonic Season

It looked like just another opening of the Philharmonic season Thursday night at the Music Center.

In a quaintly charming, faintly sexist ritual, the management bestowed gratis posies upon all female patrons. Television cameras were in attendance. Some of the gents out front sported penguin suits. The stage apron was bedecked with floral tributes fit for a state funeral. Good old Andre Previn, music director of the orchestra since 1985, manned the podium. . . .

But wait. Previn isn’t music director anymore. He resigned his post in April after losing a seemingly nasty power struggle with the executive director. A new name and a new title adorned the Philharmonic logo in the program magazine:

Esa-Pekka Salonen, Music Director-Designate.

Salonen, who is scheduled to conduct only a single program with his incipient charges this season and who doesn’t officially take over the orchestra untill 1992, already gets the top billing. Previn may be leading the orchestra in seven weeks of concerts this season, but he is now just an ordinary garden-variety guest-conductor. Sic transit. . . .

Under the circumstances, one might have expected an outpouring of sentiment when Previn made his entrance. He has served Los Angeles loyally, and this was his first reappearance since his abrupt, acrimonious departure. The blase first-nighters were content, however, to greet him with merely polite applause. Characteristically, the maestro wasted no time getting on with the business at hand.

In light of Previn’s interpretive proclivities, it turned out to be rather predictable business. Dutiful Beethoven was followed by inspired Shostakovich. The great music sounded bland. The dubious music sounded dazzling.

If Previn harbors any strikingly original ideas about Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, he hid them deftly on this occasion. He conducted efficiently, always favoring balance, clarity and reasonable precision.

He did not dawdle. He refused to sentimentalize, would not exaggerate. His control seemed admirable. Still, one yearned for a bit more breadth, for a touch of poetry and a trace of eloquence.

In Shostakovich’s massive Fourth Symphony--which, oddly enough, the Philharmonic had never ventured before--Previn found a more compatible challenge. The heroic rhetoric has been impeccably pre-gauged by the composer. The conductor need not delineate subtleties.

Here, sympathy for the idiom and technical bravado are of paramount importance. Previn provided both qualities in generous abundance.

The Fourth Symphony, written in 1936 but suppressed by Shostakovich until 1961, testifies to a fierce defiance of Stalinist oppression. The score rumbles and blares, stumbles and growls, marches stubbornly and soars fitfully for an agonized, agonizing hour.

Although the rhetoric is bravely violent, the structure remains oddly episodic. Ultimately, this protest essay seems tidy in spite of itself.

Shostakovich appropriated Mahlerian contrast procedures with uncanny skill. He mastered the fine Soviet art of quirky grotesquerie with cool panache. He knew how to make a mighty noise without destroying a sense of order.

There’s the rub. If anything, he may have been too orderly. When chaotic catharsis beckoned, he often retreated toward safe and easy vulgarity. His screaming, roof-rattling, fist-shaking climaxes tended to resolve in movie-music gush.

Unfazed, Previn pleaded Shostakovich’s difficult case with total commitment and obvious authority. The Philharmonic responded magnificently. The highest decibels blurred, alas, in the quirky acoustics of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

At the end, the audience registered much respect, little ecstasy.