Listening to the Philharmonic on Casual Terms : Music: The orchestra rehearses for the first time before a paying audience. ‘This is the work we do before concerts,’ says Esa-Pekka Salonen.

At precisely 10 last Thursday morning, an unshaven Esa-Pekka Salonen, clad in black jeans, sports shirt and sneakers, strolled up to a mike on stage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

He glanced at the equally casual members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic who sat talking and tuning their instruments, before addressing the estimated 200 concert-goers scattered throughout the auditorium.

“Good morning and welcome,” the 34-year-old music director began. “Today we are in the process of rehearsing the Second Sibelius Symphony. Yesterday we completed the first movement. There will be considerable stopping and starting because this is what music making is all about. This is the work we do before concerts. Hope you enjoy it.”

With that, Salonen ascended the podium and soon launched into a pizzicato section of the second movement.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic previously has invited junior high and high-school students to attend dress rehearsals on the day of a subscription concert, and in the past has done occasional free rehearsals for audiences. But Thursday’s event marked the first time in the orchestra’s 75-year history that it has opened such an event at the Music Center to the paying public in a regularly scheduled series.

Nine additional open rehearsals are set for 1993/94, five with Salonen at the helm. And at $10 for a reserved seat, the price, in the view of Jana Jackson of West Hills, “is just right.

“I’ve never been to a Philharmonic concert; this is a good opportunity for me to hear them and see if I want to attend at a later date,” Jackson said prior to the performance. “I packed the kid off to school and came to get some culture.”

Often final rehearsals are little more than a quick run-through of the program. But, this day, the orchestra was in for a thorough workout, with Salonen dispensing orders on tempi, bowing and expression.

“We need to hear the first three notes with the flute,” he admonished.

“I need more articulated playing,” he told concertmaster Sidney Weiss. After a confab on bowing technique, Weiss translated Salonen’s demands to his colleagues.

First section violinist Elizabeth Baker, dressed in white biker shorts and a red tunic with matching socks, strained to hear the instructions.

“Salonen is so patient with us,” she offered, munching on grapes during a break.

“There’s a mystique when people see us all dressed up in black and performing on stage, but this rehearsal gives people a real glimpse of the Philharmonic at work.”

The concept is not new. In an effort to build new audiences, and generate extra income along the way, many orchestras have long welcomed, at a fraction of the regular ticket price, senior citizens, students, the self-employed--and those simply ditching work--to their final rehearsals.

The San Francisco Symphony, for example, has built a separate subscription base for its virtually sold-out, eight-concert morning rehearsal series founded in 1973; the success of the Boston’s Symphony’s Wednesday-night series prompted the addition last season of six Thursday-morning rehearsals.

And in an effort to eliminate disruptions, some orchestras have instituted various controls: The New York Philharmonic, which allows unreserved seating at more than 20 rehearsals per season, has Music Director Kurt Masur or its guest conductor school the audience in advance on rehearsal etiquette.

The L.A. Philharmonic keeps the first 11 rows of the hall clear, and issues each patron a white paper outlining appropriate conduct: Concert-goers shall not change their assigned seats, there shall be no talking or applauding, and every effort should be made to “stifle” sneezes and coughs. Watch alarms are to be turned off. . . .

But nothing could dampen the spirits of Gila Goldstock. Powerful in her oversized black Salonen T-shirt, the Venice Beach psychotherapist rushed the stage as the rehearsal ended and collected her prize: an autograph from the blushing, now smiling conductor.

“I like the excitement of being able to meet and see these people in street clothes and having them stop and start and humanizing the whole concept,” said Goldstock, a subscriber to the orchestra’s Saturday series.

“But what I really want is Salonen’s baton.”

Overall, Salonen said he found “this first experiment” very encouraging. In a brief conversation in his dressing room, the Finnish conductor said he believes it’s valuable for audiences to realize “what it takes to arrive at the point of performance.”

When there’s a difficult program on the agenda, Salonen objects to being on display, however. “There are lots of intimate things between a music director or a guest conductor and the orchestra that should not be in the public domain,” he explained. “If it’s a technical rehearsal, it’s unnerving for the orchestra to be observed struggling with things that are hard to do. It’s nicer to present the final results when the battle is over.

“But today was fine because what we were doing was 80% musical--expression, nuances, etc. Then it works because the orchestra is not embarrassed, I am not embarrassed and the audience is not bored.”

* L.A. Philharmonic open rehearsals will be held on Nov. 11, Nov. 26, Jan. 21, Feb. 3, March 4, April 7, April 22, May 5 and May 19.