Mehta Returns in Style to Lead Youth Symphony

Absent from the American Youth Symphony’s podium since last May because of heart problems, founding conductor Mehli Mehta returned to his place for the orchestra’s 32nd annual gala at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Sunday in good health. Musically, too, he sounded fit.

On the first half, guest soloist Emanuel Ax performed Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. Ax is not a musician who shows a lot of temperament. He never does anything rash, never goes breathlessly poetic, never loses control. He’s the Volvo of the keyboard.

The fact that he has plenty to communicate and supreme command of the instrument saves the day. Planned right down to the last dotted eighth note, the interpretation shimmered with intelligent detail. Ax’s execution was marked by fluid but firm finger work, pastel colorings where suitable, consummate voicings and had spirit enough. We encountered pure Beethoven, not a flashy go-between, and that’s not bad at all.

Mehta and the orchestra provided full-blooded, oratorically grand support. These musicians--ages 18 to 25, except for Mehta, who is 88--then left little to the imagination with their enthusiastic reading of Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony. With an appropriately brawny and vibrant sound, they captured the work’s epic and muscular profile.

But it wasn’t merely a gutsy run-through. Mehta’s swift and propulsive tempos avoided all heaviness. Despite some occasional ensemble elbowing, the playing generally sparkled. Mehta showed a particularly good rapport with his string section, whose phrases were always tailor-cut. The high arching violin lines in the Adagio were especially impressive, in tune and spacious.

Impressive too were the thrilling final pages, the young musicians and the old maestro apparently equally electrified by the climactic tour de force.