Music : Perick Leads L.A. Philharmonic in Strauss’ ‘Symphonia Domestica’

It was only Jan. 4, but any resolutions about avoiding excess and overindulgence were already blown by the time the concert at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion ended. For the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the new year began as the season had, with one of Richard Strauss’ symphonic odes to conspicuous emotion.

Early performances of the “Symphonia Domestica” prompted such derision that the composer was moved to define his intentions.

“I know that some people believe that the work is a jocular expose of happiness in the home, but I own that I did not mean to make fun when I composed it. What can be more serious a matter than married life?”

Guest conductor Christof Perick gave every sign of taking Strauss at his word. Working from memory, he downplayed the more risible elements in favor of tuneful sentiment and orchestral color for its own gaudy sake.

It was not entirely Perick’s fault that the most appropriate response ultimately seemed to be a burp and a nap. He shaped a glorious hodgepodge of quasi-independent sections, and articulated all the climaxes, tugging restlessly at tempos and instrumental balances.

The Philharmonic backed him with sturdy, unexceptional instrumentalism. Corporate textures and rhythmic definition lacked clarity at times, but concertmaster Alexander Treger headed the orchestra-wide list of suave principal soloists.

In the featured solo spot, Richard Goode applied his customary pointed pianism to Mozart’s Concerto in F, K. 459. He furnished pliant lyricism and sparkling passage-work, but found a real measure of distinction only in his nimble, slightly mocking finale.

Despite a severely downsized band, Perick led an accompaniment that often sounded thick and blocky. He stayed abreast of Goode carefully, but the effort proved more proto-Straussian than Mozartean.

Perick began the proceedings with a big, grandiloquent account of Beethoven’s “Leonore” Overture No. 3. This was no stylist’s dream either, but Perick readily projected a sort of generic monumentality, long on rhetorical routine and sonic dash.