All Work and Some Play

To get a new or newish concerto performed at the Hollywood Bowl takes, at the very least, a determined superstar soloist. Yo-Yo Ma managed it a few years ago with John Tavener’s “The Protecting Veil” but he can pretty much write his own ticket, the work happened to be hugely popular with the New Age crowd, and the cellist had a new recording of it coming out on Sony. Gidon Kremer, on the other hand, told me that in the early ‘90s he got nowhere when he wanted to perform Philip Glass’ Violin Concerto at the Bowl.

Now James Galway has entered the rarefied company of the successful new-concerto givers and adds a statistic of his own. Not only did he perform William Bolcom’s Lyric Concerto for Flute and Orchestra on Tuesday night in the amphitheater, but he will also repeat it tonight. The Los Angeles Philharmonic and its associate conductor, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, are his willing accomplices.

And accomplices they surely must be. Bolcom’s concerto, written in 1993 for Galway, is a canny score--a sound portrait of a big personality, a carousing vehicle for a cheeky virtuoso. A frisky first movement, “Leprechaun,” mixes flamboyant skittishness with beery sentiment. A merry-go-round waltz in the second movement unravels as if by an American Ravel. In the slow, third movement, an elaborate solo line with the stuttering complexity of a cool improvisation surrounds the shimmering ice of high strings. The last movement, jazz-tinged, hints at bebop but is ultimately a sweet seduction with swing.

It all seems pure Galway (there is even a wink or two at the Irish shtick he so loves). But maybe it isn’t. The performance was surprisingly understated. With his head buried in the score, Galway seemed mainly intent on mastering the technical challenges. Certainly the music is difficult, and his playing was not unimpressive. But there was little sense that the soloist had made this music his own, let alone that he was the concerto’s subject. The last movement was particularly stiff. What swing and joy there were came from Harth-Bedoya and the Philharmonic players, who actually seemed to enjoy themselves more than Galway.

With four encores, Galway was, once more, Galway, ever the entertainer offering his bad jokes, recklessly fast Bach and “Flight of the Bumble Bee,” and “Danny Boy,” sopping with tremulous sentimentality. In the end, Galway’s is a poor message--that new music, even new music as friendly as your favorite comedian, is work; the fun comes later.

Bolcom’s concerto was preceded by an ardent performance of Richard Strauss’ “Don Juan” (though “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks” might have been a more apt preface for the trickster concerto). After intermission, Harth-Bedoya returned to Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony, which he had conducted with the Philharmonic during its winter season at the Music Center. This time, there was not as much of the curious but beguiling bloom Harth-Bedoya earlier gave to this otherwise stormy symphony, but then the current state of overstated Bowl amplification makes such bloom unlikely. Even so, the lilt and lyricism were, if anything, more engaging.

Given the limited rehearsal time at the Bowl, repeating some works from the winter season makes sense. But if the Philharmonic really wants to turn on its audiences, why not repeat Harth-Bedoya’s smashing performance of Osvaldo Golijov’s irresistibly tango-drunk “Last Round”?

The program by James Galway and the Los Angeles Philharmonic will repeats tonight at 8, Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood. $1-$76. (323) 850-2000.