MUSIC REVIEW : Big Birthday Bash for the Los Angeles Philharmonic

The podium on Monday was manned by two count ‘em, two--major maestros, one before intermission and the other after. Both, not incidentally, were conducting free of charge.

The stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion harbored a veritable jungle of flora--mostly orchids, I think--to offset the musical fauna.

A misplaced movie star served as amiable emcee, dispensing equal parts anecdotery and hyperbole.

The strange program, lopsided and topsy-turvy, began with a relatively big symphony and ended with pops-concert bonbons.

Assembled ears were assaulted at intermission--tinnitus, be damned--by the gigantic beat-beat-beat of assorted drums, courtesy of a Japanese percussion ensemble in the lobby.

All the gentlemen seated in the founders circle sported penguin suits.

The capacity audience, numbering 3,200, expended instant standing ovations at the drop of a hemidemisemiquaver.

This, as you may have gathered, was no ordinary garden-variety concert by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This was a gala anniversary pension fund benefit concert commemorating--and, after a fashion, duplicating--the first performance by the orchestra 75 years ago to the day.

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Our Philharmonic came into existence on Oct. 24, 1919. The locale was the modest Trinity Auditorium, long gone. The maestro on duty was a stubborn British idealist named Henry Rothwell. The orchestra, which employed an unprecedented 11 first violins (the current roster lists 18), included a violist named Ferde Grofe and a cellist named Alfred Wallenstein.

The inaugural agenda began with Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony, then a mere 26 years old. This was followed, after intermission, by Liszt’s “Les Preludes,” Weber’s “Oberon” overture and Chabrier’s “Espana.”

The creation of the Los Angeles Philharmonic represented quite a cultural splash for the City of Angels. It may be worth noting that the nearby aesthetic offerings that night included Mack Sennett’s “Salome vs. Shenandoah” at Grauman’s Million Dollar Theater and Norma Talmadge in “Fifty-Fifty” (“a story of mother-love and sacrifice”) at the Symphony. Anyone who preferred live theater could see “Civilian Clothes” at the Morosco, where ticket prices ranged from 10 to 75 cents (according to an ad, the same show would cost $2.50 in New York).

Edwin Schallert, the ecstatic Times critic on duty, hailed the Philharmonic debut as “a new epoch in local musical history.”

“Los Angeles,” he declared, had been “startled out of her symphonic slumbers.”

The 1919 opening was no brouhaha orgy. “The audience was not especially notable as to size, and the glamour of a premiere was not readily apparent,” Schallert noted, “but the people who were there represented musical taste.”

Some things change. Some things don’t.

The nostalgic festivities began at the Music Center on Monday with words of welcome from Robert Stack, who was replacing Michael York, who was to have replaced Gregory Peck. The words, thank goodness, were brief.

Zubin Mehta, who had just flown in from Israel and who was to catch the red-eye back within moments of the final cadence, symbolized the glitz and glory of yore as he conducted the Dvorak symphony. The playing didn’t sound particularly tidy, and the interpretation certainly wasn’t subtle. Both dynamic and expressive scales were very broad, almost excessively so. Still, the general affect was as affectionate as it was enthusiastic.

For better or worse, it was just like old times. Rough times.

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Esa-Pekka Salonen, who took over when Mehta was dashing to the airport, isn’t the sort of musician one associates with the rousing-schlock repertory. Essentially, he is a modernist, and a thinker. But there he was, ever the good sport, whipping up a cool, clean, heroic frenzy on behalf of Liszt and Weber.

Then, mustering a sheepish smile, he went slumming with a vulgar vengeance for the sake of mock-Hispanic Chabrier. It doesn’t seem likely that we’ll ever experience him doing that again.

That wasn’t all, folks. Little things mean a lot, and in some ways the best came last. While the crowd was still hailing the conquering heroes, Bobby McFerrin materialized to sing “Happy Birthday”--in many wondrous voices and to several surprising tunes. First he usurped Mozart’s “Figaro” overture, then Donizetti’s “Lucia” sextet. Good stuff.

Finally, and perhaps reluctantly, he reverted to the melody everyone knows. The audience chanted, the band played on, and a trusty stagehand wheeled out a cake roughly the size of Pasadena.

Salonen, who never looks particularly comfortable when required to execute kitsch rituals, cut the first piece and presented it to a delighted, hungry-looking Bing Wang, his new associate-concertmaster. (Alexander Treger, the regular concertmaster, was conspicuously and curiously absent.)

And then, at least for those who had bought $200 tickets, it was party time.