MUSIC REVIEW : Pesek at the Bowl: No Muss, No Fuss

Libor Pesek isn’t a name that causes many pulses to accelerate. It doesn’t produce stampedes at the box office.

Pesek doesn’t exude instant mystery or exotic glamour. He doesn’t do a lot of fancy dancing on the podium.

Never mind. In a music world increasingly dominated by instant Wunderkinder , by would-bes, poseurs and hype monstrosities, he is a reassuring anachronism: an old-fashioned, enlightened, no-nonsense professional.

At 61, he knows the score. More important, he knows how to communicate its meaning, without fuss and without sweat, both to the players in front of him and to the listeners behind him.

Until Tuesday night, when the maestro from Prague (and Liverpool) made his first appearance at the Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles had enjoyed the pleasure of his company only once, and the introduction wasn’t totally auspicious. In 1990, he made a hit-and-run debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a hand-me-down program devoted to Mozart and Richard Strauss.

One observer--OK, this observer--suggested at the time that it might be more rewarding to learn what Pesek could do with the Slavonic music that represents his presumed specialty. Now we know.

He can do a lot. He can do it, moreover, with an unfamiliar orchestra and limited rehearsal time. He even can do it with a performing apparatus that imposes electronic distortion in addition to alfresco distraction.

After an unusually stately “Star-Spangled Banner,” he opened the program with two installments of Smetana’s “Ma Vlast.” Contrary to the order heralded in the program, the swelling ripples and rolling waves of “Vltava,” a.k.a. “The Moldau,” came first, followed by the pictorial agitation of “Sarka.”

The Philharmonic, which often sounds rough, tough and raw in the wide-open over-amplified spaces, sounded smooth, warm and mellow here. Pesek chose carefully measured, leisurely tempos that enforced grandeur at every turn, but he never allowed propulsion or tension to dissipate in the process. Nor did he lose sight of lyrical detail in quest of narrative heroism.

In Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony, which closed the concert, he managed to sustain an essential aura of brooding drama while resisting any flirtation with overwrought tragedy. He defined an expressive scale that easily accommodated the composer’s wildly disparate impulses, from folk innocence to climactic sophistication. Pesek never allowed the simple to seem simplistic, however, or the pervasively dark tone to turn murky.

The central soloist, and another pleasant surprise, was Reiko Watanabe, a 29-year-old violinist trained in her native Japan and at Juilliard. Although she was unable to make the tiring platitudes of the Mendelssohn Concerto sound fresh--it would take superhuman powers to achieve that miracle--she did play with uncommon grace under pressure, with uncommon clarity of phrase and sweetness of tone.

She brought welcome urgency to the opening allegro, legato gentility to the endless cantilena of the andante, and zippy bravura to the breathless finale. Accurate assessment of her dynamic aptitudes was compromised by the infernal microphones, but she made it clear, even at the Bowl, that she is an artist who stubbornly savors the impact of a pianississimo. Reiko Watanabe. Remember the name.

Non-vital statistics: 7,475 customers, six aeronautical intrusions (confined, as usual, to reflective passages) and no apparent warning beacons in the sky.