MUSIC REVIEW : Maestra Edwards: Good News on Bowl’s Podium

We really shouldn’t have to make a fuss over this. It should be a routine occurrence. But statistics are statistics, no matter how sad, and news is news.

The extra-musical news at Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday involved the engagement of Sian Edwards to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The visiting Briton turned out to be the first woman on the orchestra’s alfresco podium since Rachel Worby led a Fourth of July concert 10 years ago. (Worby may be better remembered for her recent revelations about her sex life as first lady of West Virginia.)

Worby’s not-so-immediate predecessor at the Bowl was Judith Somogi, who last appeared in 1977, a decade before her much lamented death at the age of 50. According to official records, the only two females to preside at Cahuenga Pass before Somogi were Antonia Brico in 1930 and 1975, and Ethel Leginska in 1925.

The musical news on Tuesday involved the quality of Edwards’ concert. It was terrific.

The red-haired maestra, who had conducted the Philharmonic at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 1991, chose a relatively unhackneyed program--at the Bowl anything that isn’t “Rhapsody in Blue” or the “Pathetique” is unhackneyed--and performed it with equal parts confidence and competence.

She cut a striking figure in simple white blouse and black slacks, and went about her business elegantly, briskly and with comforting clarity. She isn’t the sort of conductor who dawdles over minutiae. She doesn’t distort the rhetoric with exaggerated shifts in tempo or the imposition of stress in surprising places. She doesn’t do a lot of emoting for the folks out front. Gymnastic display wouldn’t seem to be her specialty. But she does deliver the goods.

*

The goods began Tuesday with a neatly rambunctious performance of the overture to Rossini’s “L’Italiana in Algeri.” The inherent theatricality reminded us that Edwards finds full-time employment at home as music director of the English National Opera.

The goods ended with taut attention to the mighty, Mahlerian sprawl of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Edwards surveyed its shifting moods--from brooding melancholy to witty grotesquerie to climactic bombast--with canny precision. In the process, she resisted the usual temptations to exaggerate the gush or wallow in the pomp.

By withholding easy effects, she actually made the potentially vulgar music sound noble. It was a remarkable achievement, splendidly reinforced by the lean Philharmonic virtuosos and, not incidentally, by sympathetic sonic engineers.

The centerpiece of the program turned out to be Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, Opus 56, exquisitely performed by Menahem Pressler, Ida Kavafian and Peter Wiley, a.k.a. the Beaux Arts Trio.

The same artists had seemed subdued beyond the norm in chamber music at the Ford Amphitheatre the night before. On this occasion, however, they performed with unflagging brilliance--the sort that that never calls attention to itself. They performed, moreover, with sensitivity perfectly gauged to each other’s lofty needs and, more important, to Beethoven’s.

Pressler’s piano rippled and soared through the imitative intricacies. Kavafian’s violin offered a striking fusion of finesse and bravado. Wiley’s mellow cello exuded security and warmth. Edwards’ baton provided appreciative collaboration.

Significantly, the Philharmonic players--who know class when they hear it--led an audience of 6,229 in a chorus of bravos at the final cadence.