MUSIC REVIEW : Salonen Leads Stravinsky / Haydn Combo

Over the decades, certain symphonic repertory combinations have proved not only viable and complementary, but also illuminating. Mozart and Mahler, for instance. At Los Angeles Philharmonic concerts, Haydn and Stravinsky have been scratching each other’s backs, musically speaking, for years, often to the enlightenment of listeners.

These composers did so again Thursday at the first of four Philharmonic performances of Stravinsky’s two small-orchestra suites and his “Capriccio” for piano and orchestra, and Haydn’s Keyboard Concerto in D and Symphony No. 98.

These four works--the two, brief suites benefit from being given in tandem--seemed to belong together; they certainly resonated clearly off each other.

Equally important, under the sharp leadership of Esa-Pekka Salonen, they became handsomely performed. The Philharmonic’s music director may not always choose to savor the flavors he sets before his subscribers, but he does coax--perhaps allow is the better word--the orchestra toward careful detailing. This time around, he got splendid results.

From the years around 1920, the two little suites show Stravinsky mixing mordancy and melodiousness in an irresistible froth. With the Philharmonic in its more transparent mode, Salonen here began this program in buoyant readings of smile-causing music.

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He had a smaller success in the same composer’s 1949 revision of “Capriccio,” in which Emanuel Ax was the technically solid, musicianly astute soloist. Textures here failed to become clarified; inner voices tended to dominate; diligence never turned into affection. The notes all appeared, but seldom, until the finale, made strong sense.

The same perspective--a tendency to hurry rather than to linger--also afflicted the Salonen/Ax reading of Haydn’s ever-wondrous D-major Concerto.

All the elements seemed brought together, yet they never quite coalesced, never progressed from terrific efficiency into musical revelation.

At the end of the evening, such a plateau was approached in Salonen’s performance of the Symphony No. 98, a masterpiece by any standard and a virtual embarrassment of symphonic riches.

Under the conductor’s genuine probing, the work’s kaleidoscopic emotional range emerged natural in rhetoric, careful in articulation, fluent in discourse. It also sang. Among the excellent soloists were concertmaster Alexander Treger and guest fortepianist Ax.

* Los Angeles Philharmonic, tonight at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2:30 p.m. in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., (213) 850-2000). Tickets, $6-$50.