MUSIC REVIEW : Berliners Play Brahms Staples at Bowl

By their third concert at Hollywood Bowl, Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Berlin Radio Symphony seemed to have settled as comfortably as possible into their quirky environment. Thursday the visiting musicians offered reasonably secure and clean-textured accounts of two Brahms staples.

They had the advantage of opening with the Violin Concerto behind the focused skill and commitment of Antje Weithaas. The 26-year-old soloist--who made her local debut in Brahms’ Double Concerto two years ago at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic--sounded tired by the end of the majestic ordeal, but for the most hers was a well-thought, deeply felt and superbly played interpretation.

Weithaas has won many of the more prestigious violin competitions in Germany, and her comprehensive abilities include clarity and nuance, as well as the more common technical attributes of fiddling fury.

More important, she projects a strong personality, without distorting idiosyncrasy. She caressed the introspective, long-spanned melodies of the central Adagio with supple grace. She also sustained a sense of structural and emotional coherence throughout, while hurdling all the physical challenges with stylish ease.

Ashkenazy proved again a sensitive accompanist. He enforced a supportive dynamic scheme, and carefully tracked Weithaas’ liberally varied tempos.

After intermission, Ashkenazy and the orchestra turned to the Second Symphony, placing the evening squarely in the key of D. Despite all the big tunes, the music of Brahms does not play itself, and the Berliners had their share of difficulties, most noticeably in the finale.

But Ashkenazy, working from memory, kept them on a concentrated course, working to particularly limber effect in the middle movements. His orchestra responded with uncommonly swinging rhythmic punch, solid but never dense in sound.

The crowd of 9,435 leaked deserters throughout the symphony, and hosted a few quiet sit-down protests during the preliminary playing of “Deutschland uber Alles.”