The Philharmonic Gala That Wasn’t : Music review: Planning snafus make for an oddly balanced pension-fund benefit in front of an embarrassingly small audience.

The worst laid schemes o’ Salonen and Fleischmann gang aft. . . .

If all had gang as hoped, the concert at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Monday would have been something special. This, after all, was billed as an official gala. This was the annual pension-fund benefit.

The top ticket rose to $75--unless the charitable celebrants wanted a little firewater and fancy fodder with their pretty tunes. In that case, the tab was $300.

But something went awry in the planning. Doubly awry.

The central attraction was to have been Anne-Sophie Mutter playing the Beethoven Concerto. Under normal conditions, that would have represented a suitably stellar attraction. Unfortunately, the management had already scheduled the same violinist in the same showpiece at regular prices on the four preceding days.

The anticlimactic redundancy became irrelevant, however, when Mutter had to cancel her appearances. This left the Philharmonic impresarios scrambling for a late replacement. They came up with two: the little-known violinist Vadim Repin, who had taken over Mutter’s subscription duties; and the well-known pianist Yefim Bronfman, who made a noble if not altogether successful effort to salvage concerted honor.

The oddly balanced program ended up a Beethoven’s overture (the only holdover from the initial agenda) plus two concertos: the Mendelssohn for Repin, Beethoven’s Fourth for Bronfman.

Nothing went seriously wrong. When Bronfman was at the keyboard, some things went emphatically right. Still, this gala wasn’t.

The dressy audience was indomitably enthusiastic. It also was embarrassingly small.

A sea of empty seats greeted Esa-Pekka Salonen when he made his way to the podium. Veteran head-counters estimated a half-empty auditorium. Insiders suggested that some in attendance had received free tickets. If the fine old art of house-papering is alive and well at the Music Center, those who didn’t pay got their money’s worth.

Salonen opened the non-festivities with a lean and clean dash through Beethoven’s Second “Leonore” Overture. The orchestra played brightly, but there wasn’t a great deal of heroic urgency, much less nobility, on the horizon.

In the Mendelssohn, Repin offered ample surface bravura but little charm, little sentiment and little individuality. Salonen provided mechanical accompaniment.

In the Beethoven concerto, Bronfman reminded us, as best he could, that communicative music-making demands sensitivity and temperament as well as technique. Although his expressive instincts may have been straitjacketed a bit by Salonen’s somewhat brash, often unyielding collaboration--a collaboration predicated on loud dynamics and fast tempos--the pianist mustered a grandiose performance.

He dared take liberties. He dared shade the line. He turned the cadenzas into vast introspective dramas, and, in the process, managed to project a telling aura of spontaneity. He balanced bravado with poetry.

It all should have been like this.