A visceral Comrade Prokofiev, as few saw him

Prokofiev and Shostakovich, like Mozart and Haydn, can be seen as opposite sides of a single coin. Prokofiev is the cool, hard-edged, objective composer; Shostakovich, the anguished personal conscience of his time. But occasionally, Prokofiev let the mask slip, as he did in the Sinfonia Concertante, the centerpiece of the Los Angeles Philharmonic program Saturday at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

In the middle of the second movement, which began with skittish, whirligig energy, everything came to an abrupt halt as brass and percussion quietly sounded a funereal motto. A tender theme ensued, flowering into a huge statement of loving recollection. What was going on?

We know that the Sinfonia was a revision of a revision of the composer’s First Cello Concerto, written in the ‘30s and apparently not a success. Mstislav Rostropovich took it up in 1947, however, and in gratitude, Prokofiev revised it for him. Rostropovich premiered that version in 1952.

Not satisfied, the composer again rewrote it for Rostropovich. That version, which is what the astonishing Norwegian cellist Truls Mork played in Disney Hall with the Philharmonic under David Zinman, premiered in 1954. But by that time, Prokofiev was dead, a man broken by the denunciations (including Shostakovich’s) at the 1948 meeting of the Union of Soviet Composers and the arrest of his first wife on charges of spying. Prokofiev died the same day as Stalin, the man who had instigated his suffering and that of incalculable others.

There are those who feel that the huge, episodic final version is less effective than the original, but that would be hard to prove, given Mork’s masterly, passionate and imaginative performance. The cellist drew on every kind of bowing imaginable, every aspect of technique in his considerable arsenal, but only for expressive ends. In the slow movement, for instance, he made visceral Prokofiev’s hurtful memorial to a happier time.

Zinman wisely stayed out of Mork’s way, offering considerate, consistent support. Shawn Mouser played the prominent bassoon solos splendidly.

The conductor, formerly music director of the Baltimore Symphony and now head of the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, opened the program with a gossamer account of Liadov’s “Kikimora” and closed it with a zestful, if noisy, reading of Tchaikovsky’s “Little Russian” Symphony. William Lane played the opening horn solo in Tchaikovsky’s symphony with mellifluous lyricism.