MUSIC REVIEW : James DePreist Returns to Bowl

Cordial relations seem to exist between James DePreist, the guest conductor at Hollywood Bowl this week, and our Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Bowl’s resident orchestra. At least they appeared so at the reunion of conductor and orchestra, after 16 years (and 17 years after DePreist’s last Bowl appearance), Tuesday night.

In a pleasing summer program--listing Aulis Sallinen’s “Shadows” (1982), the Piano Concerto by Edvard Grieg and Gustav Holst’s symphonic showpiece, “The Planets”--the Philharmonic shared some immaculate and attentive playing with DePreist and 9,690 listeners gathered in Cahuenga Pass for this penultimate Tuesday of the 69th summer season.

The 53-year-old conductor, who leads the Oregon Symphony, elicited apprehendable as well as stylish performances from his Los Angeles colleagues. But their collaboration in “The Planets” became relaxed and neatly executed rather than punchy and compelling, and the real power of the work never materialized. A group of women from the Los Angeles Master Chorale assisted in the final movement; as has happened before in this piece, in this setting, vocal intonation proved variable.

What was missing in Juliana Markova’s otherwise charming performance of the Grieg Concerto were the heroic and compulsive elements in its character, the big bones--and potential big thrills--that make this work so popular with soloists and audiences. Beautiful moments Markova provided--risk-taking and thrilling ones were in shorter supply. DePreist and the orchestra accompanied automatically.

To open the program, Sallinen’s post-Shostakovichian “prelude for orchestra” made a strong impression: short, well-spoken, cogent. Before that, DePreist had led what was probably the fastest “Star-Spangled Banner” of the summer.