Steeped in Italy past and present

Two weekends ago, a Mexican influence pervaded the Los Angeles Philharmonic agenda. During the past weekend, the Italians took over.

On the podium Friday afternoon at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was high-profile operatic and symphonic conductor Roberto Abbado. At the piano was Gianluca Cascioli, 23, a frequent Abbado collaborator who has conducting and composing ambitions (he is now studying electronic music in Milan). And there was a U.S. premiere of a work by a 34-year-old Luciano Berio protege, Alberto Colla, -- the Philharmonic’s third U.S. or world premiere in as many weeks.

Like Berio, Colla seems to be a connoisseur of quotations -- “It’s interesting to join new music with classical,” he said at the pre-concert talk -- and in the center of his compact 1999 tone poem based on the legend of Antar, “Le rovine di Palmira” (The Ruins of Palmyra), you can hear an overt homage to Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Antar” Symphony. There are Arabic-rooted melodies planted here and there, as well as microtonal carpets of strings and some splashy scoring in the Respighi tradition.

What you notice most, though, are chugging, repetitive John Adams-style engines recurring in the work. It’s a clever, ear-enticing collage of a piece, one that switches course on a dime and concludes in stark near-silence. But Colla’s own voice is difficult to discern.

Mozart’s “Coronation” Concerto has virtually dropped out of the concert repertory; this was its second Philharmonic performance (the first was in 1964). Cascioli brought it back with a delicate, legato yet firm touch, contributing his own cadenzas that looked ahead to Beethoven and Chopin, while Abbado supported every fluctuation. Abbado got the Philharmonic to respond vigorously and cohesively in Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 -- a solid, conventionally paced, well-organized, if not quite electrifying, performance.