MUSIC REVIEW : A Gentle Beethoven and a Muscular Liszt

We don’t see nearly enough of Simon Rattle these days on the podium of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

He may be listed officially as principal guest-conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but several ordinary, untitled, garden-variety guest-conductors visit us with greater frequency. Nevertheless, we must be grateful for fleeting two-week favors.

Rattle’s ridiculously brief stint this season fell a bit short of a total triumph. It began last Friday with some exciting Messiaen compromised by some miscalculated--and sloppily executed--Wagner. When the stint ended this week, however, all was well.

Well, almost all was well.

For introductory exercises Thursday night, Rattle and the orchestra provided Stephen Hough with incredibly gentle, gratefully attentive support in Beethoven’s Concerto No. Three, Opus 37. One had to admire the fluidity, the cantabile grace and the dynamic sensitivity with which Hough breathed through the solo challenge. Conductor and pianist obviously agreed on an intimate scale, a delicate frame of expressive reference, and an abiding aura of understatement.

The somewhat unorthodox collaboration sometimes suggested mild-mannered Mozart rather than potentially heroic Beethoven. Still, it made good sense on its own eminently thoughtful, eminently tasteful terms.

The familiar Beethoven concerto was reasonably satisfying. Liszt’s seldom-heard “Faust Symphony,” which came after intermission, turned out to be a revelation.

No conductor, not even one as intelligent as Simon Rattle, can do much to contain the inherent romantic sprawl. The composer was very fond of repeating himself and, worse, of interrupting himself. Each of the three sections in the 65-minute marathon builds slowly and circuitously to a climax that somehow stops just short of catharsis.

The episodic nature of these “character pieces” stresses fascinating detail at the expense of a clarifying overview. Liszt painted many telling trees, if you will, within an ill-defined forest.

None of this rattled Rattle. He dwelt with infinite affection on the details, moved forward with dispatch when threatened by much ado about little, and let the mighty trees fall where they might.

In the process he persuaded the Philharmonic to perform like an ensemble of mutually sympathetic poets. He coaxed the strings to shimmer, the winds to sigh and the brass to roar. The shimmer, moreover, was always poised, the sigh tender and the roar mellow.

In the “Chorus Mysticus,” an eloquent afterthought borrowed by Liszt directly from Goethe, the men of the Los Angeles Master Chorale sang with focus and fervor. John Aler’s sweet, bright-toned tenor floated elegantly through the ode to the eternally feminine.

The hall, not incidentally, yawned with empty seats. Before beginning the symphony, the patient maestro had to wait at the podium while hordes of latecomers strolled to their places in the founders’ circle. A significant audience exodus materialized as Faust’s journey progressed. Understandably, this did seem to rattle Rattle.

One has to wonder if our public really is ready even for modest flights of musical sophistication. One has to worry about the credibility of our cultural pretensions.

One cannot live on hum-along Tchaikovsky alone, even in Los Angeles. Or can one?