MUSIC REVIEW : Miller Gets His Turn at the Bowl

David Alan Miller, who is minding the 18,000-seat store at Hollywood Bowl this week, has been an extraordinarily valuable fixture with the Los Angeles Philharmonic since he first served as a student maestro here in 1985.

Rapidly elevated to the post of associate conductor, he has nobly championed the cause of new music, ably deputized for some stellar colleagues on the Music Center podium and demonstrated considerable skill as both educator and administrator. He also has done splendid work as a musical missionary with young audiences and, hardly least, held his own amid an endless parade of glamorous guest-conductors.

Now a grand old man of 30 and maestro for all--well, both--seasons, he is preparing to move on to full-time leadership of the Albany Symphony. California’s loss will, of course, be New York’s gain, but Miller’s crossing makes good sense.

It is time for him to assume a primary position, even in a secondary locale. It is worth noting, moreover, that the impending arrival of Esa-Pekka Salonen--our new, 33-year-old music director--could make Miller’s special sympathies and affinities seem redundant if not superfluous in Los Angeles.

Miller is a thoughtful musician and a fine technician. He obviously cares about matters of structure, texture and style, and, not incidentally, he commands a clear beat. He knows how to play the orchestra.

For all his local exposure, however, he has not enjoyed many opportunities to flash a bold dramatic temperament. Tasteful, analytical restraint would seem to be his forte. Nor has he been able to get his hands, and baton, on many complex expressive challenges.

If all had gone as originally planned, Tuesday’s concert might have shed some new light on the breadth of Miller’s interpretive scale. The second half of the program was to have been devoted to Aaron Copland’s heroic Third Symphony. Unfortunately, that thorny rarity was replaced for some unexplained reason (rehearsal limitations?) by two of the same composer’s greater--e.g. lighter and more familiar--hits: “Appalachian Spring” and “El Salon Mexico.”

Exulting in the gift to be simple, Miller made the all-American ballet suite roll along with gentle, fluid grace and, where appropriate, with folksy charm. He delineated the tricky rhythms and peppery accents of Copland’s south-o’-the-border excursion with elan. In both pieces, he elicited exceptionally tight and bright performances from the Philharmonic.

Still, like poor, undernourished Oliver Twist, at least one listener among the 9,607 in attendance wanted more.

Miller did offer a hint of what might have been (or was it a preview of coming attractions?) when he opened the program with a crisply articulated, propulsive account of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” overture. At concerto time, he provided suitably transparent, buoyant accompaniment for Gil Shaham, the much-heralded 20-year-old soloist in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.

Shaham, who recorded the same romantic vehicle last year with Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, played brilliantly and sweetly throughout. The bravura hurdles caused him no distress and, even with his own floor microphone, he mustered an agreeably intimate scheme of dynamic contrasts.

With maturity he will, no doubt, find more passion in the opening allegro, more sweeping lyricism in the andante and more climactic fire in the finale. In the meantime, we can savor his poise, his nonchalance and his dexterity.