Kirov Gives a Serious Twist to Program of Haydn, Mahler

The great Russian playwright and author Anton Chekhov advised beginning writers not to introduce a rifle in Act 1 unless it goes off by Act 5.

So in that honorable tradition, Russian conductor Valery Gergiev made sure that the huge, enigmatic wooden box at the rear of the Kirov Orchestra in a Haydn-Mahler program served a real purpose Thursday night at the Hollywood Bowl.

Roughly an hour and 20 minutes into Mahler’s shattering Symphony No. 6, one of the percussionists quietly ascended a platform behind the box, loosened a button on the jacket of his winter tuxedo, raised an enormous wooden mallet and brought it down on the box with a heart-stopping whomp.

It was the first of the three blows of fate that, according to Alma Mahler’s account, fell the hero in the symphony.

Each time the sound punctuated, as few things could, a serious, controlled, determined but not revelatory or highly personal interpretation of the work.

Gergiev focused on propulsion, strong but elastic line and interpretive restraint. He made sure that the “Alma” theme, in which the composer said he tried to paint a portrait of his wife, reappeared in ever new guises. And he made memorable the farewell echoes from the earth in the first movement, as well as the chilling opening of the finale.

Still, the conductor did not always make Mahler’s sprawling rhetoric cohere, and he steered the style far closer to the blocky primary colors of Prokofiev than the intricate emotional fluctuations of the hypersensitive Viennese master. It was coolish and a little odd.

Following Mahler’s lead, Gergiev also had second thoughts about the most effective order of the middle movements. At the 1906 premiere, the composer placed the Scherzo before the Andante. Then he changed his mind, then later changed his mind again.

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So did Gergiev. At the last moment, he reversed the order printed in the program booklet and played the Andante first. Did it matter? Yes. It made the work a more traditional symphony and separated the calm from the storm.

The program opened with Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto, played in a leisurely old-fashioned manner, rather than a crisp, so-called historically informed style. It was quite lovely. The fluent and lyrical soloist was 19-year-old Sergei Nakariakov, who played his own cadenzas. With Gergiev standing approvingly a few feet away, he also breezed through several of Jean-Baptiste Arban’s taxing Variations on “Carnival of Venice” as a solo encore.

* The Kirov Orchestra, led by Valery Gergiev, plays the annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular today at 8:30 p.m. and Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at the Hollywood Bowl. Today, $3-$26; Sunday, $3-$23. (213) 480-3232.