MUSIC REVIEW : Midori, Double Orchestra at Hollywood Bowl

The program of late-Romantic Russian favorites at Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday proved a study in sonic and visual performing contrasts. Surrounding diminutive violinist Midori’s solo vehicle were the massed efforts of the combined Los Angeles Philharmonic and Philharmonic Institute orchestras.

Midori had the benefit of the relatively concise charms of the Glazunov Concerto. Though her widely swaying stance did nothing to enhance the reliability of the amplification, her rich, articulate sound still worked its wonders. Her ardor for the music, as always, seemed overwhelming, in a ripe, expressive and characteristically flamboyant account.

She did little, however, to unify the piece, and some of her phrasing sounded at odds with both the score and the accompanying orchestra. That was the Philharmonic alone, capably guided by Neeme Jarvi, though losing touch with his mercurial soloist at times.

The big piece-- really big--on the agenda was Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony, a Philharmonic staple under several conductors. Apparently dedicated to the proposition that all musicians are created equal and that more is, well, more, the Philharmonic musicians and their junior colleagues were interwoven into one orchestra 200 strong.

Ensemble values stayed surprisingly high, in a reading neat and smooth almost to a fault. The solos were all ceded to fluent Institute players, sounding more than usually plaintive and tender emerging from such a sonic mass. It was all a bit much for the amplification system, however, which put a coarse edge on the warm, thick sound whenever it rose to a climax.

Which was often, in Jarvi’s broadly scaled account. He reveled in the sweeping lyricism and kept his grand band cleanly balanced, but projected scant sense of emotional urgency or structural cohesion.