MUSIC REVIEW : Previn Conducts a Lethargic ‘Heldenleben’ at Pavilion

Doldrums happen--sometimes when you expect them the least. They happened Thursday night at the opening concert of the third week in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new season.

Former music director Andre Previn, concluding a three-week visit (he returns for four more weeks in January, February and April), led a program more intriguing in prospect than in its realization: Beethoven’s “Egmont” Overture, the Clarinet Concerto of Carl Nielsen and Richard Strauss’ tone poem, “Ein Heldenleben.”

With a lot more heroism and compulsion--not to mention self-hypnotism and arrogance--Previn’s “Heldenleben” might have been convincing. It certainly had much in its favor: a willing and enthusiastic orchestra, strong soloists, fine instrumental detailing. And it unfolded with a certain dignity--which is not the same thing as sweep.

But it lacked bravado and that sense of storytelling that the best “Heldenleben” conductors bring to what can seem, in lesser hands, a sprawling musical scenario. It takes genuine panache to make this tawdry music seem important, and on this occasion at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Previn did not produce it.

Despite obvious affection and good will, the conductor and soloist Lorin Levee--a principal of the Philharmonic since 1981--also did not achieve a compelling performance of Nielsen’s much-admired (by clarinetists) but ultimately downbeat concerto. With the right combination of performers, it may sometimes seem irresistible; this time around, it sounded merely gray--Hindemith without the charm--and in no way typically Nielsenian.

The resourceful Levee leaped all technical hurdles gamely and successfully, brought varieties of instrumental color to bear on the work’s changing moods, and stressed the many contrasts herein to be found. But, until the last page, when genuine feeling seemed to invade this reading, it seldom found an emotional core.

The evening had begun promisingly, with a serious deliberation of the “Egmont” Overture, a performance of accumulative power and triumph, one that did not anticipate the lethargy to come.