Acquiring a French Accent

Advertisements emphasized Spain for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s program Friday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, drawing attention to popular Spanish-themed pieces by Debussy and Ravel. America could just as well have been highlighted--Gershwin’s music constituted the first half. But, in fact, with the help of the French pianist and conductor, the Philharmonic spent its Thanksgiving weekend reminding us of the extraordinary reach of French culture in the early years of the 20th century.

Gershwin’s Concerto in F can, of course, seem the most American of works. A follow-up to “Rhapsody in Blue,” which was for piano and jazz band, it is a full-scale traditional concerto for piano and orchestra. While jazz had already invaded the concert hall in America and Paris by 1925, no standard concerto used it so extensively. Ravel’s jazz-laced Concerto in G was still five years off. And Gershwin was not to be an American in Paris for a couple years yet.

Still, Friday’s performers--conductor Emmanuel Krivine and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet--are exceptional Ravel interpreters, and they effectively brought to mind the French composer who was a strong influence on Gershwin’s concert music and orchestral style.

A week earlier, when John Adams conducted the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in “Rhapsody in Blue,” with Jeffrey Kahane as soloist, rhythm was unquestionably the central and revolutionary element in the music, controlling harmony, melody, tone color.

Under Krivine and Thibaudet, the opposite seemed the case. Neither performer is insensitive to rhythm. Krivine opened the program with a fresh, nuanced, snappy reading of Gershwin’s “Cuban Overture.” Thibaudet, currently in the midst of a varied two-week residency with the Philharmonic, has made popular recordings of Bill Evans and Duke Ellington (music he will play at the Knitting Factory Tuesday night). But the sense here was not that both Krivine and Thibaudet think about Gershwin’s rhythm differently than do Americans but that it is something they have to think about rather than simply take for granted.

Thibaudet’s playing has a sparkle to it. He has clearly studied Gershwin’s own cool, clean playing. And he almost relaxes into the concerto with that easy nonchalance that made Gershwin such an impressive pianist. But one nonetheless senses the tension in the too-sudden accents, the effort to make the rhythms sound easy through all that dazzling filigree.

Krivine’s was a more colorful approached to Gershwin, the conductor eager to emphasize expressivity at every turn, as if the orchestral writing had the nuance of Ravel. Gershwin is second nature to the Philharmonic--the composer conducted the orchestra in the ‘30s, and it has been playing both pieces on the program since the ‘40s--but it seemed to enjoy here the intriguing novelty of experimenting with a slightly foreign accent.

The Philharmonic is also at home in Debussy’s “Iberia” (which it recorded five years ago under Esa-Pekka Salonen) and Ravel’s “Bolero” (a favorite since the Zubin Mehta days). Krivine led stunning performances of both and ones stunningly different than the orchestra is accustomed to.

Debussy’s tone poem is that of a French tourist describing Spain to the French. And under Krivine, those descriptions had a wonderful immediacy, such as when the impetuous brass theme in the first movement, an impression of Spanish street life, suddenly appeared with the striking thrill that one gets from turning the pages of a pop-up book. Yet through it all--whether the elegant, perfumed instrumental colors or the bold effects--Krivine maintained an alluring sense of fluidity.

Krivine’s “Bolero” was curvaceous and vivid. The punch was certainly there, with the long climactic build-up expertly handled. But the most fun was in the solos, particularly from the Philharmonic winds and brass in expressive competition with one another. Although utterly French in its almost exclusive attention to lurid color and sensuality, “Bolero” here sounded even jazzier than Gershwin.