New Sounds From L.A.’s Old Maestros

We hear a great deal these days about how the Los Angeles Philharmonic has been newly invigorated by Esa-Pekka Salonen, and there is no question it has. But we have heard such things before.

Back in 1962, for example, when a dashing 27-year-old Zubin Mehta became music director, he brought tremendous youthful vitality to the orchestra. Sixteen years later, in 1978, the orchestra was ready for a new lease on a soulful Old World life when Carlo Maria Giulini took the helm. Then it was Andre Previn’s turn, in 1984, to return the orchestra to its all-American roots.

All three former music directors shone bright here in the spotlight of the entertainment industry. Each had prestigious recording contracts with the orchestra, as Salonen does now with Sony Classical. Curiously, though, all floundered after leaving Southern California, especially as far as their recording careers were concerned. But given the outstanding nature of three new releases--all, coincidentally, on Sony Classical--by the members of this very particular ex-music directors’ club, that downturn may be over.

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*** 1/2 LISZT: Symphonic Poems. Berlin Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, conductor. (Sony Classical)

Mehta, who became an international celebrity during his tenure with the Philharmonic, seemed to be on the road to ever-greater glamour, assuming the music directorship of the New York Philharmonic after Los Angeles. But a contumacious orchestra and a hostile press in the Big Apple turned the position, which he held for 13 years (longer than any other music director in the orchestra’s history), into a ceaseless kvetch session. There were complaints about sloppy ensemble playing, careless conducting and superficial interpretations. Most painful of all, Mehta was accused of causing the loss of the orchestra’s long-standing recording contract with CBS (now Sony). The market he had commanded when he was making sonic spectaculars with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (on London) had vanished.

Now Mehta, who resigned from the New York job in 1991 to devote himself more to opera and other freelance conducting, is undergoing a reevaluation by even his fiercest New York critics. His conducting of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle in Chicago last year was lavishly praised, and his work in Munich with the Bavarian Opera (of which he is currently music director) has helped make that once-stodgy company one of Europe’s liveliest.

But record executives are apparently still wary of Mehta. Sony only just now issued his finest recording in some time, although it was recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic more than three years ago. It contains a survey of Liszt’s most popular symphonic poems: “Les Preludes,” “Orpheus,” “Mazeppa,” “Hamlet” and “Battle Against the Huns,” once great potboilers--often appropriated as melodramatic background music for silent films and, later, old-time radio drama--that are actually highly sophisticated examples of brilliant tone painting, full of astounding orchestral effects.

Returning to the showy repertory he made so popular in his Los Angeles days, Mehta not only has absolute control of the music’s full theatrical measure, he also has the Berlin Philharmonic playing up to its reputation as an orchestra of stunning impact. Here is a satisfying and exciting blockbuster from a conductor who has lost none of his verve but gained maturity.

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*** SCHUBERT: Mass in E-flat major. Bavarian Radio Orchestra and Choir, Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor. (Sony Classical)

If Mehta came to Los Angeles as a young star on the rise, Giulini, at 64, arrived a revered master who had had a significant opera and concert career in Europe and in Chicago. His years here were an era of glowing performances, and some very beautiful recordings on Deutsche Grammophon document them. But Giulini was too Old World to ever have become a real part of local musical life. When he returned to Italy to care for his ailing wife in 1986, he began to limit his conducting engagements and became a shadow of his former self with painfully slow, uninvolving performances. Sony began a Beethoven cycle with Giulini conducting the orchestra of La Scala but eventually abandoned it, so poorly received were the performances. Now his releases are reduced to a trickle.

Understandably, perhaps, Sony seems in as little rush to issue Giulini’s latest efforts as it is Mehta’s. So once again, a performance taped more than two years ago, a live rendition of Schubert’s resplendent Mass in E-flat, has taken an unusually long time to be released. On the surface it shares qualities with other recordings Giulini made since leaving Los Angeles--namely, slowness. But this is luminously slow, in the way Schubert can be under the right and rare conductor.

Leading the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and Choir, and a capable quintet of vocal soloists (soprano Ruth Ziesak, alto Jard Van Nes, tenors Herbert Lippert and Wolfgang Bunten, and baritone Andreas Schmidt), Giulini lets one of Schubert’s most affecting, grandest works--and one not nearly so well known as it should be--unfold as if he were turning the pages of a beautifully illustrated manuscript, allowing time for each to be fully absorbed and admired before moving on to the next.

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*** 1/2 ANDREPREVIN: “From Ordinary Things.” With Yo-Yo Ma and Sylvia McNair. (Sony Classical)

Most complex of all is the current situation with Previn, who succeeded Giulini. Previn somehow never seemed completely himself in Los Angeles, after his glory days as film composer and jazz pianist, metiers he was not eager to acknowledge once he became the head of a major orchestra.

After leaving the Philharmonic in 1989 and moving to New York, Previn became a guest conductor of elite ensembles (such as the Berlin, Vienna and New York philharmonics), but he also loosened up about his work in jazz, composing and even film. Then two years ago, Deutsche Grammophon made a big effort to revive Previn’s recording career, publicizing his exclusive contract with the label. But despite his fine performances accompanying violinist Gil Shaham (the Prokofiev concerto recording was a Grammy nomination this year), the company already seems wary of the conductor. His latest effort, a performance of Strauss’ “Symphonia Domestica,” with the Vienna Philharmonic, has been released in Europe only.

But if his conducting career remains somewhat lackluster, Previn’s own music is beginning to look special. In 1992, he wrote, with poet and novelist Toni Morrison, a deeply moving song cycle called “Honey and Rue,” for soprano Kathleen Battle. Now he has collaborated again with Morrison, this time setting four poems for soprano Sylvia McNair and including a cello obbligato for Yo-Yo Ma called, simply, “Four Songs.” Previn has also written a major cello sonata for Ma, and Sony has released the songs and sonata on a new recording that features Previn performing the difficult piano accompaniments.

The CD is titled with a line from Morrison, “From Ordinary Things,” but there is nothing casual or ordinary about this music. The cello sonata begins in fairly typical Previn manner, with the engaging scurrying music he does well. Then it turns lyrical, something else Previn does with ease and maybe a bit too much facility. But then he starts probing his material in a deeper, richer manner, getting more and more serious as he proceeds, melding his many stylistic talents.

The songs, too, are beautifully made--the powerful expression of a complete musical personality. And the performances are riveting, as if it had suddenly dawned on the players (Previn included) that Previn has crossed a threshold as a composer. It’s too bad, perhaps, we couldn’t have seen that happen here in Los Angeles, but lucky Northern Californians may reap the full reward. Previn is currently completing an opera based on “A Streetcar Named Desire” for the San Francisco Opera.