‘Project’ places Debussy in a contemporary context

Next to December’s large-scale “Tristan Project,” the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Debussy Project” seemed at first blush like a tiny afterthought.

This project, unlike the six-concert “Tristan” mini-festival, was confined to a single Green Umbrella event Monday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall. There was hardly any pre-concert hype, no multimedia pretensions, no more than three musicians involved per work.

Yet the premise was pointedly similar. Again, some particularly forward-looking works from a great composer were juxtaposed with newer ones that placed the composer in a contemporary perspective. The process will be repeated next season in the Philharmonic’s “Beethoven Unbound,” and no doubt there will be more such perspectives to come.

In this case, the music was Debussy’s last testament, the three sonatas for diverse instruments (out of a projected but unrealized cycle of six) that seem to be groping toward new forms and sonorities without losing the composer’s distinct signatures.

Next to these jumping-off points, the contributions by Kaija Saariaho and Steven Stucky (both West Coast premieres) paid homage in differing ways and languages. (According to a Philharmonic spokesman, a third piece, “Axioms” by Marc-Andre Dalbavie, had to be canceled because the performance materials arrived too late.)

In contrast to the shifting moods of Debussy, Saariaho’s marvelously haunting and obsessive “Je sens un deuxieme coeur” consisted of five short sections that succinctly seized upon one mysterious, tense or barbaric idea apiece. In a welcome venture into new music, pianist Emanuel Ax joined violist Dale Hikawa Silverman and Finnish super-cellist Anssi Karttunen, reveling in the pounding second movement and the relentlessly grinding fourth movement coda.

Stucky’s “Sonate en forme de preludes” -- in which Ax switched to the harpsichord, flanked by Anne-Marie Gabriele’s oboe and Elizabeth Cook-Shen’s French horn -- seemed a lighthearted lark in this context, exploiting repetitive Ligeti-like keyboard strokes and various bubbling or pastoral sonorities that this unusual lineup is guaranteed to produce. To paraphrase Charles Ives, a contemplation about nothing serious.

The most radical of the three Debussy pieces, the Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp, benefited the most from the startling clarity of Disney Hall, as violist John Hayhurst, flutist Janet Ferguson and harpist Lou Anne Neill achieved a nearly perfect balance.

Cellist Peter Stumpf (with pianist Joanne Pearce Martin) made a very persuasive, impassioned case for the Sonata for Cello and Piano, with all of its hesitancies and eccentricities laid bare. The rendition of the Sonata for Violin and Piano by violinist Bing Wang and Ax was full of shade, mischief and a touch of schmaltz.