L.A. Philharmonic Offers Surface Thrills

Admirable versatility characterizes the programs of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. For the last three weeks of this now-concluding winter subscription season, those programs have been engrossing.

The final one was performed Wednesday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (where it repeats through the weekend), as the orchestra prepared for appearances at the Ojai Festival, then its Hollywood Bowl summer season.

It was a bombastic agenda of second-level Russian works: Rimsky-Korsakov’s popular suite “Scheherazade,” the Fourth Piano Concerto by Rachmaninoff and Scriabin’s “Poem of Ecstasy,” a tawdry little musical parade guaranteed to cause cheering from some listeners--as it certainly did Wednesday.

Music director Esa-Pekka Salonen brought energy, panache and abundant detailing to these pieces. In terms of exciting the audience, the combination worked, and the orchestra played with all its many resources--especially the soloing of its principals--unfurled.

Nonetheless, the evening was not one of great substance or deep thrills.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s generous canvas, for all its colors and tunes, is a one-dimensional mural; Rachmaninoff’s G-minor Concerto may be the weakest and most sprawling link in his oeuvre, and Scriabin’s swollen tone-poem is an empty balloon of self-hypnotism, a paean to musical self-abuse--its final, contrived climax a meretricious experience.

In the end, it was the performances that brought legitimacy to the questionable. Concertmaster Martin Chalifour and his colleagues shone in “Scheherazade.” The expansive and kaleidoscopic virtuosity of Yefim Bronfman made the emptiness of the concerto practically lovable. And the orchestra, coaxed by Salonen, gave Scriabin as fair a shake as he may ever receive.

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The Los Angeles Philharmonic repeats this program, Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m., Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. $10-$70. (323) 850-2000.