MUSIC REVIEW : A Night for Wonderful Sounds at Hollywood Bowl

Veteran Hollywood Bowl observers have long claimed that climatic conditions, not acoustical devices or sound-dispersal techniques, account for the quality of sound in the mammoth amphitheater. Some nights, we believe them.

Thursday, for instance, when David Zinman, returning to the podium of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for a pleasant and acoustically benign evening of pops morceaux highlighted by a reappearance of the prodigious Sarah Chang.

The 12-year-old American violinist, who played the Tchaikovsky Concerto at her Bowl debut last year, returned this week with shorter, but even more charming, pieces, the “Carmen” Fantasy by Sarasate, and two famous items by Fritz Kreisler, “Liebesleid” and “Liebesfreud.”

In all three, Chang displayed again an ear-opening virtuosity, an unfailing and articulate musicality and a natural performer’s instincts for unself-conscious showmanship. At this moment she is a phenomenon; in time, she could become a treasure. Zinman and the Philharmonic provided joyful, admirably unobtrusive accompaniments.

Not only during the solo spots, but throughout the evening, the sound of the orchestra, both loud and soft and in the many gradations in between, became perfectly clear and unfettered by aural additives.

One always admires the conductor who demands faceted quiet playing from this ensemble; what is thrilling, especially out of doors, is to encounter those demands fulfilled as effortlessly as they seemed to be Thursday.

Benefiting from this cherishable collaboration was music by Berlioz (the “Roman Carnival” Overture, unlisted in the printed program, three excerpts from “Damnation de Faust” and the Royal Hunt and Storm from “Les Troyens”) and Respighi (“I Pini di Roma”). Among the stronger contributing soloists were English hornist Carolyn Hove and clarinetist Lorin Levee.