MUSIC REVIEW : Oslo Philharmonic Returns With a Split Personality

Don’t always believe what you read in the program magazine. The Oslo Philharmonic, which performed twice at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion this week, did not tour the United States for the first time in 1987.

The uneven concert at the Music Center on Monday did not represent a local debut. Los Angeles heard the orchestra at Royce Hall, UCLA, during a visit back in 1974.

Admittedly, the Oslo Philharmonic was a rather different orchestra 17 years ago. The conductor at the time was Mendi Rodan, an Israeli from Romania. The introductory agenda he chose was rewardingly nationalistic, honoring Scandinavian composers in general, Norwegians--Arne Nordheim and Eivind Groven as well as the inevitable Grieg--in particular.

The Oslo podium is dominated now, and has been since 1979, by Mariss Jansons of Riga, who doubles as Yuri Temirkanov’s associate music director in Leningrad. No stranger to Southern California, Jansons led a Tchaikovsky minifestival with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1988 as well as some concerts on the celebrated Leningrad Philharmonic tour last year.

The Latvian music-director did schedule a small chunk of Nordheim plus a large one of Sibelius on his second-night agenda. It may be significant that he chose to open, however, with all-purpose Mendelssohn and a composer obviously close to his own heart, Shostakovich.

Unblushingly, the program blurb described the Oslo orchestra as “world class.” Although the music-making contradicted that puffy claim in the former, it provided reasonable confirmation in the latter.

This orchestra does not seem to strive for spit-polish precision, as do the best American models. It cannot boast the lush ensemble of the Vienna Philharmonic, or the heroic brilliance one expects from Berlin. Given the right stimulation, however, it can play with fine bravura spirit. It can project expressive warmth, mellow timbres, careful balances and subtle dynamic distinctions.

The evening began badly with the tired though inevitably cheered rhetoric of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Jansons provided dutiful accompaniment for his soloist, Frank Peter Zimmermann. The 26-year-old debutant from Duisburg, Germany, attended efficiently to the virtuoso challenge, but his tone often seemed raspy, his articulation oddly mechanical. Orchestral support was compromised by rough textures and severe intonation problems.

Matters could only improve after this, and they did. One doesn’t have to admire the pesky thematic repetitions, the swollen rhetoric or vast structural sprawl of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, subtitled “Leningrad,” in order to appreciate an authentically bold and splashy performance.

With much concentration and little physical fuss, Jansons focused on basics. He traced the progress of tiny whimpers to thunderous climaxes with patient caution. He gave the inherent grotesquerie its jaunty due yet made the lyrical outbursts sing with expansive fervor.

All the pieces, sensitive as well as bombastic, were in place. The ultimate whomping cadence did its work.

The relatively sparse audience responded accordingly.