MUSIC REVIEWS : Elegance and Inelegance Meet at the L.A. Philharmonic

Let the record show that the night the gods Johnson and Jordan battled in Inglewood--Friday night--the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was officially sold out for a program of Debussy and Rachmaninoff, courtesy of Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Culture is alive and well in L.A.

Well, sort of. There certainly wasn’t anything very highbrow about half of the proceedings at the Pavilion. Alexander Toradze came out and attacked Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto like Homer Simpson gobbling up a meal. The Russian pianist literally gave the gooey, grandiose opus the heavy-breathing, foot-stomping, snorting and groaning treatment, quite beside himself in rapture and to the delight of the throng.

Toradze had two speeds: bravura hammering and breathless ecstasy. Nothing between. Forget about clarity of line, rhythm and texture, forget about pacing, forget about subtlety. This was full bore, baby, from first to last. It seemed interminable. It was as amazing as it was horrible. Salonen’s accompaniment proved a model of restraint and discipline, and he followed the pianist’s every twitch expertly.

The Debussy portion couldn’t have been a greater contrast. Salonen led a subdued and silken “‘Prelude a l’Apres-midi d’un Faune” to start. Post-intermission, he presided over a remarkably graceful and pleasing interpretation of the travelogue triptych “Images.”

One admired the unruffled tempo changes, the attention to dynamics, the general precision of the playing, the sure sense of timing. One missed a distinctively French approach though: the unblended instrumental colors, the sharp rhythms, the nasal woodwinds, the sinewy strings of a Gallic ensemble. These “Images” appeared a little too smooth, like postcards from a tourist.

Still, one was immensely grateful to get them after that concerto.