Welser-Most’s Winning Return to L.A.

First impressions of Franz Welser-Most’s debut appearance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in 1991, were of a young conductor of deep seriousness, an overwrought podium manner and strong potential.

The conductor’s seriousness remains, though he is less dour than at that first visit; his manner is calmer and his potential realized: Welser-Most was appointed to head the Zurich Opera five years ago and last year was named music director of the Cleveland Orchestra beginning in 2002.

As he showed Thursday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, in his second program in a two-week guest-conducting appearance, the 39-year-old Austrian musician has learned to move less and express more.

His conducting of Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes” and an hour’s worth of orchestral excerpts from the four operas that make up Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelungen” cycle demonstrated the authority, integration, detailing and leadership that always produce convincing and magnetic music-making.

*

He had the tight attention and committed skills of the orchestra’s players throughout this exposing program. In particular he had the powerful but never strident resources of the brass choir.

Britten’s operatic masterpiece--and especially these interludes--creates a picture of human alienation in sound. From the beginning, the emotional content of each segment was revealed thoroughly and grippingly.

In the seven “Ring” excerpts, Wagner’s broad range of colors and feelings came to life in details of dynamics, texture and contrast. Welser-Most controlled pacing and balances but let the players create the moments.

In a program that seemed too short, some of those moments could be attributed to violist Evan Wilson in the Britten suite, and to, among others in the Wagner scenes, clarinetist Michele Zukovsky and principal concertmaster, violinist Martin Chalifour.

* The Los Angeles Philharmonic repeats this program in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., tonight at 8 and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. $15-$70. (213) 365-3500.