Tour Fare Is Caviar at Bowl

Esa-Pekka Salonen told the crowd at the Hollywood Bowl on Thursday night that the Los Angeles Philharmonic would not be around for a while. It embarks next week on a two-week, five-stop European tour, and its music director assured the audience that he and the orchestra would do its utmost to make Los Angeles proud.

There is little to worry about, given the splendid performances not only Thursday night but also those heard Tuesday and in the two programs last week. Everything has been chosen to make an impact, to play to Salonen’s and the orchestra’s strengths. The music comes from the 20th century, or at least plays off music that does.

One program, heard at the Bowl last week and scheduled for the Lucerne Festival and at the Proms concerts in London’s Albert Hall, is sure to raise eyebrows and maybe some political consciousness. One looks forward to the comment it will engender. It contrasts Shostakovich’s rarely heard Second Symphony, an ode to Lenin and the brotherhood of the workers’ struggle, with the all-embracing ode to brotherhood that is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Both were written in moments of desperate optimism; we listen, however, with ears conditioned by history.

It is a happy arrangement that Philharmonic tours also serve Bowlgoers, providing a level of performance considerably higher and program making considerably more interesting than usual. There are compromises in playing outdoors, of course. The Shostakovich didn’t take sonically or spiritually in a setting of picnic plenty, and the Beethoven Ninth seemed not quite as inspired as it has been in the past under Salonen.

But it was positively inspiring to witness the incomparable hush of thousands held spellbound Tuesday by Mahler’s “Des Knaben Wunderhorn,” with profoundly communicative Thomas Quasthoff and deeply moving Lilli Paasikivi as soloists. (Matthias Goerne will sing all the “Wunderhorn” songs at the Lucerne Festival with the orchestra, while Quasthoff will be joined by alto Anna Larson at the Edinburgh Festival.)

Just how much these programs represent Los Angeles, however, might be questioned.

Neither the tour nor the Bowl programs have included Salonen’s own music, and that is a glaring omission, and all the more so given that Yefim Bronfman is the soloist in Bartok’s First Piano Concerto in all tour venues. Bronfman has lately been playing Salonen’s solo work “Dichotomie,” which could make a fine pre-concert presentation.

But at least there is Stravinsky’s “Agon.” In introducing the 12-tone 1957 ballet score after intermission on Thursday night, Salonen mentioned that it was the only tour piece written in Los Angeles, written in fact at Stravinsky’s West Hollywood home, and the crowd roared its approval.

“Agon” was part of a program of brilliant works that included a gripping performance of Sibelius’ Seventh Symphony, a luminous reading of Ravel’s “Mother Goose” Suite and a rollicking run-through of his “La Valse.” None of this is news to regular symphony-goers, because all of the tour repertory (with the exception of the “Wunderhorn” songs) are works gleaned from the past two winter seasons at the Music Center.

But the Los Angelesness of “Agon” made it special Thursday, as it will, I predict, in Europe. This may be the most modern-sounding music audiences will hear at the Bowl all summer, but it was grippingly played by an orchestra that has the style in its blood.

It is also music that highlights soloists and breaks the orchestra into small ensembles, which makes it much more amenable to amplification than the Romantic period music that dominates most of the summer here.

Most important of all, it piqued the audience’s interest. As I walked out at the concert’s end, nearly every conversation I overheard was about “Agon.” Some didn’t like it, but at least they were talking about it--and not real estate!

There is nothing particularly novel about orchestras doing their cities proud on tour; they always take along their well-prepared best with exactly that intention in mind.

But wouldn’t it be something if the Los Angeles Philharmonic could do its city proud at home all summer long as it has these past two weeks?