Not a Banner Night at Hollywood Bowl

Things did not go smoothly at Hollywood Bowl Thursday night.

The sound system sent out mixed and confusing messages during the first half of the Los Angeles Philharmonic concert conducted by Andrew Litton. Noisy passing aircraft began passing early on, and let up only after intermission. A restless audience talked a lot and kept dropping its bottles, and clapping whenever the playing stopped.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” opened the evening slowly, sounding as if the conductor were unfamiliar with it. Only in the second half did the orchestra, seemingly despite Litton, perform on the positive side of indifference.

At the end, there was a presentable reading of Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony, uninspired but neat. And, at center, the young Italian musician Giovanni Bellucci made a promising debut in Beethoven’s C-major Piano Concerto.

This loose-limbed run-through produced a lovely rehearing of the lyric slow movement, though one that turned out to be directionless in the extreme. And, though he certainly needed a more rigorous and vigorous accompaniment--Litton showed himself here, as elsewhere in the program, a laissez-faire leader who seldom takes the reins--Bellucci showed signs of personality, individuality and life.

Perhaps Tchaikovsky’s beloved “Little Russian” Symphony, at least as played by our superior orchestra, is foolproof. Though Litton didn’t make a compelling case for it, the work still satisfied. The abrupt conclusion to the Scherzo cannot be blamed on the composer; here, the conductor, not actually in control of the work’s architecture, merely arrived at the end earlier than we expected. The finale ran its course more convincingly.

The program began with an uneventful and unshaped reading of Berlioz’s Overture to “Benvenuto Cellini.”