Violinist Zehetmair Bends a Beethoven Icon to His Will

Individuality can cross the line into mannerism. That was the case when Thomas Zehetmair played a very private performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on a three-part program led by Paavo Jarvi on Friday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Zehetmair restricted his dynamic range essentially to that between mezzo-piano and pianissimo, determinedly drawing in the audience to appreciate his fine, thin-lined, flute-like playing. One couldn’t help wondering whether anyone much beyond the first rows heard it. The limited range, sometimes to the vanishing point, not incidentally limited his--and Beethoven’s--expressivity.

Zehetmair also tended to stretch out phrases and tempo, and to interpolate his own odd cadenzas, including one that incorporated a dialogue with principal timpani player Mitchell Peters. Shades of Gidon Kremer.

The violinist played cadenzas not only in the usual place in the first movement, but also where they are just about never heard--in the transition between the second and third, and two more to boot in the third movement. The additions did little to unify the work, which Zehetmair seems to regard less as an icon than a structure to play with.

Jarvi did his best to accommodate the soloist’s eccentricities, following his tempos and scaling down the orchestra so as not to swamp him, though encouraging it to reach a more normal and expressive dynamic when it played alone. But the result was an uncomfortable juxtaposition of two different interpretations of a single work.

On his own, after intermission, Jarvi led a feverish, impassioned account of Schumann’s “Spring” Symphony, finding in it more tension and emotional complexity than exuberance, joy or the vernal renewal the composer referred to in a letter. Schumann’s ultimate psychological breakdown hovered at the periphery, but fortunately the final movement brought forth smiling innocence and delight. They were welcome.

Jarvi opened the program with the United States premiere of the only movement of the Symphony No. 11 that Eduard Tubin finished (orchestration completed by Kaljo Raid). It is a big, bold, sweeping work, crafted masterfully from a few elements and immediately appealing.