Sounds as if Salonen has some favorites

Esa-Pekka Salonen’s “Beethoven Unbound” project continues to unfold this weekend, with another batch of symphonies wrapping a contemporary piece in a giant, sympathetic but nevertheless intimidating embrace.

Then the series goes on hiatus until the end of April -- which is a pity because hearing all nine symphonies in a short span of time, hopefully in numerical order, would give you a much more powerful narrative of Beethoven’s radical evolution.

So in Walt Disney Concert Hall on Thursday night, the chronology was disrupted by leading with Symphony No. 6 and closing with Symphony No. 4, leaving the crucial, explosive, intervening Symphony No. 5 for 2006. Oh well, there are symphony cycles on CDs for the impatient and curious to peruse during the break.

To his credit, Salonen’s Beethoven at least has a consistent profile. He likes things to move, maintaining a light, clear, precise texture with thankfully fewer of the arbitrary brief distortions of tempo and dynamics that used to drive some of us crazy. And the Los Angeles Philharmonic played splendidly, technically better than they did even for Carlo Maria Giulini’s Beethoven.

Yet one gets the impression that some of the symphonies seem to interest Salonen more than others. He played the Sixth Symphony as if it were a casual curtain-raiser rather than the spiritually profound tone poem it can be -- with no repeats, a curiously listless second movement, a surprisingly distant storm and a finale with little sway in the rhythm or poetry in the rhetoric.

The Fourth Symphony found Salonen much more attentive to dynamic contrasts -- he really knows how to float a pianissimo in this responsive hall -- and the finale came off exhilaratingly well at his fleet tempo. Yet the latter movement was the only time all evening that this listener could feel a real sense of surprise in Beethoven.

There were no surprises in Oliver Knussen’s recent Violin Concerto; the piece is entirely characteristic of Knussen’s lucid, luminous, easy-on-the-ear, delectably orchestrated style.

As usual, Knussen says what he means concisely, taking only 16 minutes, and the sense of fantasy familiar from his Maurice Sendak-inspired operas was in full play in the scherzo-like finale. Likewise, violinist Leila Josefowicz’s tone has never been so delectably projected as it was in Walt Disney Concert Hall as she toyed with Knussen’s busy solo line.

This was a good match of composer, soloist, conductor, orchestra and hall doing what they seem to do best.

*

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When: 8 tonight and 2 p.m. Sunday

Price: $37 to $129

Contact: (323) 850-2000 or www.laphil.com