MUSIC REVIEW : Beethoven Opens Bowl--at Last

The Hollywood Bowl season finally began Tuesday night, when Roger Norrington, flailing guest-conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led a merry modern band through a program examining two of Beethoven’s greatest hits.

The news of the opening may come as something of a surprise to the hordes that have attended nine previous concerts in the same wide-open spaces of Cahuenga Pass this summer. So how can an innocent music lover tell a “preseason” offering from the real, festive introductory thing?

That’s easy. At the official opening, the stage is bedecked with posies: in this rustic instance, sunflowers. Also, tickets cost more--a whopping $72 for a box seat in the so-called garden, as opposed to the mere (everything is relative) $50 charged before.

There are other differences, too. Openings attract massive numbers of competitive picnickers. Attendance figures zoom, the tally on this occasion reaching 15,043.

And what about the music and the music-making? What about Beethoven?

We thought you’d never ask.

At the Bowl, the music tends to be the cultural tail that wags the social dog. No one out front seems to take the music very seriously.

Ask the cheery folks in the upper reaches who decided that the tiny pause following the end of the first choral entry in Beethoven’s Ninth--it wasn’t even a cadence--would be a nifty spot for applause. The celebrants, possibly under the spell of the full moon, must have thought the concert was over.

Wishful thinking.

The stubborn minority that insisted on concentrating on Beethoven had to contend with further disorientation. Norrington’s primary claim to fame, after all, is based on an admirable, scholarly quest for historical authenticity--a quest that involves period instruments, intimate ensembles and the application of appropriate performance practices. The Philharmonic, on the other hand, is a 20th-Century orchestra that specializes in producing big, throbbing sounds in big, reverberant showplaces.

Norrington is a smart man. He makes no effort to impersonate Esa-Pekka Salonen, who, not incidentally, is taking the Bowl summer off. The British maestro does not make the mistake of trying to force the Philharmonic to sound like his London Classical Players. The inherent timbres aren’t exactly interchangeable.

Still, Norrington does not--repeat, not--approach Beethoven with the Philharmonic as if he were just another Romantic superstar doing his extrovert thing. He strives for a relatively lean and pliant line. He adopts phrasing procedures characteristic of 18th-Century interpretation, favors brisk tempos virtually at all costs, and re-seats the orchestra (the cellos in the middle, the basses up behind the first violins and the timpani at the front, stage left).

The result on this occasion tended to bridge the worst of both worlds, old and new. Textures often thickened into mush, despite everyone’s best intentions. Intricate phrases got scrambled under pressure. Expressive ideas that make sense in another stylistic context sounded merely awkward in this one.

One could savor telling details. One could appreciate the absence of boom and bombast. Still, one had to be frustrated by what seemed like fidelity to a misplaced cause. One longed in vain for a touch of poetry at one extreme, and for a jolt of heroism at the other.

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The general impression might have been more positive if Norrington had revealed technical skills to match his intellectual vision. His conducting seldom rose above the pedantic level, however, and in moments of passion he sometimes resorted to windmill gestures more conducive to propulsion than precision.

Emanuel Ax served as soloist in the Fourth Piano Concerto (also, surprisingly and inaudibly in the national anthem). He is, as we all know, a superb technician and an artist capable of enormous power as well as subtle introspection.

On this difficult occasion, he had to cope with microphones that amplified his instrument beyond the point of grotesquerie for two movements, and he had to adapt his bigger-than-life approach to a conductor accustomed to accompanying a mild fortepiano. Under the circumstances, one had to take a lot on faith.

In the Ninth, Norrington found the moments of calm more congenial than the moments of storm. At least he held everything together.

The vocal quartet, stationed upstage, was dominated by Gregg Baker, whose resonant baritone brought a welcome sense of grandeur--some odd German notwithstanding--to the introductory apostrophe. Like many a fine lyric tenor before him, John Aler found his exposed solo taxing. Like many a fine mezzo before her, Paula Rasmussen got lost in the sonic woodwork. Like many a fine dramatic-soprano before her, Christine Brewer found the ascending soprano solos difficult but unrewarding.

The suitably ecumenical chorus--comprising the Korean Master Chorale, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the William Grant Still Chorale--made a suitably mighty noise.