MUSIC REVIEW : Something Old, New From Salonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic have climbed back out of the pit. Poor Pelleas and his mixed-up Melisande have returned to the beach in Malibu. Peter Sellars has put away his Debussy toys and is busy, no doubt, inventing folksy action for Berio and Janice Felty, to be introduced under the shade of the Green Umbrella on Monday.

It’s business as usual, again, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

The business was rather bracing on Wednesday, when Salonen’s main goal was to prove that Beethoven and Lutoslawski make congenial billfellows. The effort wasn’t entirely convincing. At least it was provocative.

The evening began, however, with a world-premiere detour, courtesy of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize winner Shulamit Ran: “Invocation” for horn, chimes and timpani. Identified in the program as another “75th anniversary gift” to the orchestra, the extended fanfare documents a nervous exchange of thematic and rhythmic impulses that become increasingly somber, also increasingly complex, with the passage of time.

Time, in this instance, involves 4 1/2 cleverly plotted minutes. Jerry Folsom (horn), Perry Dreiman (chimes) and Raynor Carroll (timpani) served as conscientious timekeepers.

After this mini-overture, Salonen & Co. turned to a highly dramatic overture, Beethoven’s Second “Leonore,” which had prefaced the “Fidelio” premiere of 1805. The maestro dispatched its sentiment with crisp, heroic abandon, and the Philharmonic responded brilliantly.

Then, blithely leaping over 161 years of musical evolution, Salonen presided over the first public performance by the Philharmonic of Witold Lutoslawski’s mildly forbidding Symphony No. 2 ( private performances had taken place earlier in the season in a recording studio). The aesthetic shift may have been a bit startling, but it was hardly accidental. Salonen’s original plan for this occasion, after all, had been to pair Beethoven classicism with Schoenberg serialism (the Variations for Orchestra, Opus 31).

In Lutoslawski’s symphonic exercise, which lasts 25 minutes, the composer makes telling use of chancy building blocks to erect rather strict sonic structures. His fusion of conventional and aleatoric techniques creates fascinating contrasts of color and texture. The conductor serves primarily as cue-bearer.

The first half of the work, titled “Hesitant,” is essentially percussive--a network of chattering instrumental choruses that sometimes overlap, sometimes clash and seldom pause for any sort of resolution. The second half, “Direct,” adds the softness of strings (everything is relative) and the sustaining repose of dense ideas (everything is relative) leading to a violently frenzied climax (everything is relative). If nothing else, Lutoslawski proved himself a master of orderly chaos.

The Wednesday night audience, which doesn’t always take easily to discord, registered mixed reactions. A few walked out mid-performance, quietly. At the end, some cheered lustily. Some just applauded politely. A few booed. No one seemed terminally offended.

And no one, thank goodness, seemed bored.

The traditionalists who endured the modernist excursion were rewarded, after intermission, with the Beethoven Violin Concerto--in a somewhat unorthodox performance. Stubbornly unsentimental, Salonen provided a neat, cool and brisk orchestral frame for a stubbornly introspective soloist, Christian Tetzlaff.

The 28-year-old virtuoso from Hamburg seemed intent on playing chamber music--never a bad idea--and he did so exquisitely. His dynamic scale was delicate, his line gently nuanced, his technique impeccable.

One had to admire the violinist’s extraordinary taste and refinement. One also had to wish, from time to time, for a bit more fire, and, more important, perhaps, for a less matter-of-fact accompaniment.

The most striking, most surprising element in the concerto involved the choice of cadenzas. In place of the customary Joachim interpolations, Tetzlaff provided his own transcriptions--call them arrangements--of the elaborate cadenzas Beethoven had written for his own piano version of the violin concerto. (The composer never provided violin cadenzas.)

Following in the scholarly footsteps of Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Tetzlaff introduced an ornate etude worthy of Paganini in the first movement, complete with timpani punctuation; a discreet transition to the rondo, and two decorative elaborations in the finale.

It would be a mistake to assume that Beethoven would have wanted a violin to imitate effects that work best on a piano. Still, the “original” cadenzas tell us a lot about the sort of liberties sanctioned by the composer, and about the inherent possibilities of thematic development. Tetzlaff’s adaptations, moreover, make good, idiomatic sense on their own terms.

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Incidental intelligence:

* In May, Emanuel Ax will play the piano version of the Beethoven concerto with the Philharmonic under James DePreist. It might have been more illuminating, for those of us with short memories, to hear the two versions side by side.

* Serving as concertmaster this week and next is Jorja Fleezanis, a most distinguished guest from the Minnesota orchestra. Our search, apparently, goes on.

* The same Philharmonic program will be repeated at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center tonight at 8, Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets $6-$50. At a special matinee Saturday at 2:30, Sibelius’ “Pohjola’s Daughter” replaces Ran and Lutoslawski works. Tickets $5-$35. Information: (213) 850-2000.