Philharmonic’s Virtuosity Shines in Works Old and New

Dedicating their three weekend performances to Betty Freeman--the indefatigable arts patron who reaches her 80th birthday June 1--Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic offered three new pieces, one at each performance Friday through Sunday in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

These were “Fanfare for Betty,” by Salonen himself, on Friday; “Tango for Betty,” a piano piece by Harrison Birtwistle played by Mitsuko Uchida, on Saturday night; and “Song for Betty” by Kaija Saariaho, performed by the orchestra, on Sunday afternoon.

At each concert, the originally announced program--Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and suites from the ballets “Undine” by Hans Werner Henze and “Daphnis et Chloe” by Ravel, followed the new composition.

Friday night, Salonen’s five-minute “Fanfare,” a clangorous, steadily expanding crescendo beginning gently and ending in a climax of dizzying full-orchestral activity, caused a sensation at the outset. It is a thrilling fun-ride combining invention with hyperactivity.

At the other end of the evening, Ravel’s multihued “Daphnis” Suite No. 2 showed a similar range of dynamics and precipitated a standing ovation. Both performances created their own special heat while reveling in the orchestra’s consistent brilliance and flagrant virtuosity.

And what came in between also kept the listener alert and steadily engrossed.

Returning to the Philharmonic’s subscription concerts, pianist Uchida gave as compelling and electric a performance of Bartok’s many-layered First Concerto as may be possible.

The Japanese pianist laid out the work in a manner easy to follow and impossible to mistake. She created an intertwined web of details and inner references, gave motivation to all the work’s elements and built a superstructure of unfolding revelations. Salonen and the orchestra were her unflaggingly involved collaborators.

Henze’s unfamiliar suite from “Undine” (1958), never before performed by the Philharmonic, shows the German composer at his most eclectic, mixing in this same work styles both advanced and conventional within the broad range of 20th century compositional techniques. The result is attractive, engaging and thoroughly entertaining, even without a narrative line. The Philharmonic played the total most convincingly and with the affection usually given an old friend.