Music : Sanderling, Perahia in Philharmonic Concerts at Pavilion

The mellowness that comes with age has long seemed one commodity particularly cherished by subscription audiences of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, perhaps because the emphasis on youth--especially on youngish conductors--has always been so great with this orchestra and its patrons.

In the six years he has been visiting here, Kurt Sanderling has earned the thorough admiration of our sometimes fickle local audiences. He is, as has been said many times, a courtly gentleman of the old school, a conductor of thoughtful musicality, and one whose reconsidered performances often illuminate familiar music. Some have noted that he sometimes seems to favor slowness for its own sake, yet, for the most part, that has proved a virtue rather than a vice.

Sanderling’s second program in his current, three-week visit with the Philharmonic, heard at the first performance Friday night, revealed again the 78-year-old conductor’s penchant for deliberate and probing music-making.

Like the audience gathered in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the orchestra itself on this occasion seemed to be under Sanderling’s benign spell; it played no better and no worse than usual, but looked to be enjoying itself immensely. And it was paying close attention to the man on the podium.

The readings, however--of Brahms’ B-flat Piano Concerto, with the estimable Murray Perahia at the keyboard, and Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony--did not set new standards for insight or neatness. They became pleasant walk-throughs, carefully realized if sometimes mechanically unkempt.

Beethoven’s Sixth moved along a stately path, in steady slowness, each movement apparently reiterating the mood--and tempo--of its predecessor. Dynamic peaks were achieved in the appropriate places, of course, yet without any sense of discovery.

There was more spontaneity in the concerto, but genuine heat remained an elusive ideal.

Perahia’s effortless pianistic and musical accomplishments, despite a few wondrous passages--the thrilling point of recapitulation in the first movement, for instance--found elegance but not exactly nobility, and created affecting, if not quite magical, moments. A handsome, admirable reading, yet one less than fully Brahmsian in its sweep.