East, West embrace in a marriage made in Disney

To follow the delicate, drifting, East-West flowerings of Toru Takemitsu with the overpowering Russian angst of Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” Symphony might seem like a shotgun marriage of opposites. Well, yes, it is, but Yasuo Shinozaki, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s gifted assistant conductor, forged an unsuspected link between these two works Friday night at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Rather than plunge into the gloom of Tchaikovsky’s opening bars, Shinozaki carefully drew them out, phrasing slowly and gently as the deep strings and bassoon emerged from dead silence. In doing so, he seemed to extend the Zen-like mood of the coda of Takemitsu’s “From me flows what you call Time,” whose wind chimes fade into silence. It was a deft bit of conducting -- and it came off effectively in a well-insulated new hall where silences are like those on a digital recording; you don’t even dare breathe during passages like these.

Although this was the first time the Philharmonic has played Takemitsu’s piece, his longest for orchestra, it was not a local premiere. Carl St.Clair, the Toronto-based percussion group NEXUS and the Pacific Symphony took it up in the late 1990s, even making a recording for Sony. Written for NEXUS and the Boston Symphony, it is really a percussion concerto of sorts, a theatrical, spiritually enveloping wash of color that seduces you immediately and doesn’t let go for more than half an hour.

The five members of NEXUS entered the hall as if in a ritual, striking crotales (small brass discs that make a bell-like sound) as they slowly walked toward the stage. As at the Carnegie Hall premiere, five colored ribbons representing earth, water, fire, wind and sky were connected to twin sets of wind chimes hung from opposite terraces, creating a shimmering stereo effect for those seated in Orchestra Level 3, at least. Takemitsu’s composing was revealed in detail, strings slithering with amazing clarity, each exotic percussion instrument having its own precise profile.

Once done with the opening bars of “Pathetique,” Shinozaki displayed more good ideas, bringing in the big sentimental tune broadly and languorously yet not holding back on the succeeding violence. The second movement unfolded with a sweeping motion, smoothing over the rhythm a bit, but the great Scherzo-March was excellent, set to a cracking tempo. And Shinozaki let the Finale sing out expressively but without tears or excessive self-pity.