Music : Temirkanov Revitalizes Tchaikovsky

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a shameless purveyor of sentimental claptrap, a gushing Russian-romantic caricature.

Right?

The Tchaikovsky slush pump cranked out musical slurp primarily for the delectation of susceptible adolescents of all ages.

Right?

Wrong.

Poor Piotr has withstood a lot of abuse in recent decades. Lazy conductors have milked his indulgences, savoring expressive as well as dynamic excess at every bloated yet florid turn. Orchestras have used his hum-along agonies and feel-along ecstasies as fool-proof fund-raising devices. Teary audiences have basked in the cumulative goo.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Yuri Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg (a.k.a. Leningrad) Philharmonic Orchestra proved it, once again, on Friday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

This was a night for revelations. Blissful revelations.

Temirkanov, a frequent visitor here since the summer of ‘88, can be a rather eccentric force on the podium. His baton technique--actually, a baton-less technique--pays little respect to the rules of orthodoxy.

He likes to sculpt mysterious phrases in the air. He often telegraphs interpretive cues in the manner of a heroic actor. Sometimes he pays his players the ultimate compliment: stopping to just listen as they move on without his guidance.

Such liberties invite distortion if the re-creative system isn’t quite in order. Temirkanov performances have been annoying on some occasions when the conductor seemed to lose self-control. The maestro’s independent style can be uniquely inspiring, however, when all the pieces fall into place, as, most emphatically, they did on this occasion.

Temirkanov doesn’t seat his orchestra in what we regard as conventional formation. He positions the cellos and basses high on his left, the winds and brass high on his right, the violins out front on both sides. The configuration can be both aurally and visually disorienting. Here it produced ensemble timbres of extraordinary mellowness and transparency.

Born 55 years ago in Nalchik (Caucasus), Temirkanov obviously does not subscribe to the notion that Tchaikovsky’s generous rhetoric must be understated for the sake of public decency. He gives the emotions their sometimes languid, sometimes stormy due. But--and this is the crucial but--he doesn’t abandon the intellect in the process.

Temirkanov finds the proper focus for every detail and every nuance, every roar and every whimper. He is a master of light and shade. He has inherited the Russian secret--it probably cannot be learned--of projecting an expansive lyrical line within a taut dramatic frame.

He knows where the great climaxes lie, yet never allows their exposition to sound ponderous. He sets up crisp rhythmic definitions that make the eventual recourse to rubato all the more telling.

Most revealing, perhaps, he treats the big, lush, instrumental apparatus as if it were a chamber orchestra. Keeping the textures lean, he automatically keeps even the droopiest tunes clean.

He opened the program with Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 3, Opus 55, best known hereabouts because George Balanchine appropriated--and translated--the final andante in his epochal “Theme and Variations.” Elegance prevailed.

After intermission came the dreaded “Pathetique.” The expected cliches failed to materialize. Eloquence prevailed.

For a loudly demanded encore, Temirkanov and the orchestra illuminated yet another quintessentially Russian adagio: “Nimrod” from Edward Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations.