Chemistry still lacking in Blomstedt’s return

Herbert Blomstedt was a regular guest conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the early to mid-1980s, and if memory serves, his music-making here was mostly solid, informed and not terribly exciting. Yet he and the San Francisco Symphony bonded beautifully for a decade thereafter; check out their stunning Nielsen symphony cycle on CD.

Oddly enough, the reaction to Kurt Sanderling around the same time was exactly the opposite -- coolly received in San Francisco, loved by the Philharmonic. In both cases, it would seem that chemistry more than musicianship was the crucial factor in determining whether a musical partnership flourished.

Much has changed since. At 78, Blomstedt is now a grand old maestro guest-conducting the leading American and European orchestras after laying down the reins in tradition-steeped Leipzig, Germany (he remains conductor laureate in San Francisco and was just appointed honorary conductor in Bamberg, Germany). The Philharmonic is a different orchestra now -- and, of course, it plays in a different hall.

Yet after the final fanfares of Bruckner’s massive, tuneful Symphony No. 4 (“Romantic”) faded Thursday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, it was clear that some things had not changed. Blomstedt and the Philharmonic produced a solid, decent, cultivated performance, but not an elevated one.

One could admire the transparency of texture and Viennese turns of phrase in the strings in some passages, and the secure work of the French horn section was way beyond the standard here in the ‘80s. There was, alas, little poetry to be felt; the great climaxes in the second movement passed uneventfully, and the brasses sometimes blared uncomfortably.

The only movement that really took hold in an individual, nongeneric way was the Scherzo, where Blomstedt enforced a surprisingly broad tempo, masterfully shaping the crescendos, generating the elusive Bruckner sense of ecstatic mystery for the first time.

Staying in Central Europe, the program opened with Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1, whose industriously busy yet genial collection of rippling arpeggios, scales and octaves was polished to a fine, fluid gloss by pianist Garrick Ohlsson. Blomstedt provided a sturdy, Germanic but not overly forceful orchestral foundation.