Hahn’s Joy Allows Brahms’ Concerto to Soar

Sometimes the supreme concert accomplishment is the creation of the illusion thatthe music made itself. Will and technique were very much apparent Thursday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, but so was a cherishable selflessness and interpretive communion that made disparate (and potentially recalcitrant) monuments by Brahms and Shostakovich seem unfettered and alive in the hands of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Leonid Grin, and debutante violinist Hilary Hahn.

This was not a matter of self-abnegation. At just 18, the prodigy from Baltimore is already a charismatic and active violinist. Her effortless technique and sweet sound are documented on disc, but her recordings only partly capture the generosity of spirit and enthusiasm she displayed Thursday in Brahms’ Violin Concerto.

The combination of mechanical mastery and eager exploration of detail gave the Concerto a freshness and a freedom it too seldom receives. There was reflective nobility, to be sure, in Hahn’s account, but even more there was joy in soaring song and nimble dance, a vivacity and earthiness that suggested we may have been overdoing the solemnity of the thing, particularly in the first movement.

Hahn’s first recording was of the Bach sonatas and partitas--not the usual prodigy calling card--and in encore she played the second movement of the Sonata No. 2 with eloquent poise and gloriously pure tone.

Grin and the Philharmonic backed her with vigor and flair in the Brahms. Substituting for an ailing Franz Welser-Most, Grin maintained accommodating balances and kept the orchestral contributions stylish and pertinent.

Grin also kept Welser-Most’s scheduled program intact. The music director of the San Jose Symphony and a frequent guest conductor, Grin reportedly has conducted Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony recently, and familiarity and sympathy showed in his intense performance of this haunted music. Harrowingly intimate and personal, it moves from zesty cynicism through desolate funereal reaches and macabre dances to ultimate repose.

Grin takes it very seriously; he waited with meditative patience for coughing and rustling to subside before launching each movement, allowing this generally spare, fragile music the best environment possible. There was no sense of forcing anything. Grin allowed the music to open organically, working here with silence rather than against it.

In this he had the avidly concentrated cooperation of the Philharmonic. This is a symphony of solos, and principals throughout the orchestra gave full, sensitively scaled expression to Shostakovich’s lonely, lyric ideas. The ensemble playing of the full sectional choirs wasn’t cosmetically perfect, but it too had immense sincerity of utterance, as well as clarity of texture and rhythm.

Grin and the Philharmonic opened with a surging account of Brahms’ “Tragic Overture,” passionate and robust within conventional parameters.

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* The program will be repeated tonight at 8 and Sunday at 2:30 p.m., Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. $11 to $65. (323) 850-2000.