Boulez Shows His Mastery at the Podium

Tightened concentration, not higher standards, becomes the main event when Pierre Boulez conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The players produce more compelling music because they are paying closer attention. Deep respect makes them come alive.

The French composer’s program as he opened the first of his two sets of weekend concerts on Friday--to be followed by side-events here and by a long weekend at the Ojai Festival--offered a standard-length agenda cram-full of ideas and cross-references. Intellectually, here was much to chew. In the ear, one could choose between pleasures. In any case, this was not a concert for the passive listener, which may explain why a few patrons left the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion before it was over.

Opening the proceedings, Stravinsky’s abstract ballet of 1957, “Agon,” in an intense if not-strictly serial style--the dancers who first performed it called it “The IBM ballet” because of its mechanistic idiom--showed the philharmonic’s players at their most resourceful. As is his wont, the 71-year-old conductor led without apparent stress or concern; only the clarified and handsome results betrayed the extreme care being taken.

At the other end of the program, Boulez’s “Livre pour cordes” (1968; 1988) and “Notations, I-IV” (1945-1978), both of which the orchestra has played here before, balanced the rigors of “Agon” with similar substance of thought but considerably more density of texture.

The work for strings seemed almost melodramatic after “Agon,” sounding nearly as impetuous and impassioned as the Stravinsky piece is deliberate. “Notations” remains a display for a gifted ensemble, four mood-pieces using a panoply of orchestral devices; it was here brilliantly executed.

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Even more devices came into the picture at mid-concert, when principal concertmaster Martin Chalifour replaced the measles-downed Vadim Repin as soloist in the two Rhapsodies by Bartok and in Ravel’s exotic and daunting “Tzigane.” Chalifour, assuming the responsibilities of these colorful, note-filled test-pieces even as he retained his concertmaster duties in two of the other three parts of the agenda, sailed through it all without mishap.

More important, more impressively, he showed the style, temperament and insouciance--one really ought to say charisma--one would expect from a full-fledged, not substitute, soloist. His “Tzigane” proved as breathtaking as it can be, and the Bartok pieces sang and danced irresistibly. A feat--and accomplished with grace.