The Phil, full of purpose

The Hollywood Bowl again.

At the Tuesday and Thursday classical concerts, the repertory remains mostly standard and rehearsals are too seldom adequate. The Los Angeles Philharmonic plays for thousands yet connects with few in the great amplified outdoors. As summer heats up, the orchestra tends to sound increasingly demoralized. Is that what we have to look forward to once more?

Possibly, but not likely.

This summer, the Philharmonic is in training for one of the most important periods in its 84-year history. When it moves into the Walt Disney Concert Hall in October, the ears of the world will be upon it.

For this season’s first classical concert Tuesday night at the Bowl, the orchestra already sounded in excellent shape. It may have faced a preening conductor in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and a soloist in Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 whose glossy black jacket (leather? latex?) brought Liberace-like sparkle to his pianistic fireworks. Still both Andreas Delfs, who is music director of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and popular pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet are serious and exacting musicians. A sense of musical purpose was all but palpable.

Liszt’s concerto requires, and rarely gets, a sense of humor. With its flashy octaves and all the rest, it makes the composer’s usual extravagant technical demands upon the pianist. But it is also wildly inventive. The main theme begins poetically and winds up as a vulgar march. It’s outrageous and also great theater, and Thibaudet caught this trickster character well. His clean, percussive tone can turn clattery under amplification, but he overcame that by balancing elegance with exuberance and just the right touch of wit.

Delfs appeared to be on a similar wavelength, although it was sometimes hard to tell. The piano was closely miked, sounding as though it were being played on one stage with the orchestra on another in the background. Principal cellist Peter Stumpf’s lyric solo made a curiously graceful effect -- it sounded as if it were floating through the air from a great distance -- but it probably would have made an even more graceful effect had the piano accompanied it and not the other way around.

For Beethoven’s Seventh, Delfs led the Philharmonic as if it were a machine, guiding a sequence of tightly packaged units -- Beethoven’s symphony -- down an efficient production line. There was great skill involved on the players’ part to make the performance sound so slick, sleek and effortless.

And there was no lack of pleasure in hearing this symphony, so infused with the spirit of dance, carried along on waves of rhythmic exuberance. In a more vivid acoustical setting, it might even have been exhilarating.

What the performance lacked, however, was a strong sense of momentum. Delfs, who has brought a sense of freshness to his Mozart with the Philharmonic at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, was obviously trying to make an even greater Beethovenian impression.

When not leaping off his feet as if on a trampoline, he struck inspired, maestro-like poses, as if for an imaginary photo session.

Still, his gestures were also rhythmically tight, and the orchestra played as if delighted to prove it could do anything he asked for with ease.

A sprightly performance of Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger” Overture opened the program, and lovely balloons were released to celebrate the season opening. But the real celebration was in the Philharmonic’s sheer verve. Maintaining it over the next many weeks will be a chore, especially with such demeaning assignments as accompanying PBS’ schlocky tenors this weekend.

But it will also be worth it.