MUSIC REVIEW : Odd Program Grandly Played at Pavilion

The potential for a letdown was high. Following a heady month with music director-in-waiting Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Los Angeles Philharmonic was launching its final subscription concerts of the season, under a substitute conductor, with a substitute soloist and an emended program.

It also seemed as though there was a substitute audience in attendence Thursday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Certainly conductor John Nelson’s opening gambit, Ives’ “Unanswered Question,” took most of the house by surprise.

With Nelson seated on a stage bare of musicians except four flutists, the Ives began under the cover of much talking, door-banging and the entry of puzzled late-comers. The ethereal shimmer of the off-stage strings gradually emerged from the hubbub, though the lonely, beautifully lyric call of trumpeter Donald Green still caused double-takes around the hall.

This was Nelson’s gloss on the program he inherited from Neeme Jarvi, replacing the originally scheduled Music for Strings by Eduard Tubin. Completely divorced from the rest of the proceedings by the resetting of the stage, this odd preliminary asked a set of questions entirely different from the programmatic one.

Happily, the concert proper proved no perfunctory exercise. Peter Frankl dealt with Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 2, which he inherited from Zoltan Kocsis, with clarity and pointed vigor, notwithstanding his own obtrusive foot-tapping throughout.

Frankl played with obvious zest and intelligence, his unassuming sound driving the alert, sharply detailed accompaniment in collaboration rather than competition. Nelson kept the beginning of the Adagio at the threshold of audibility, its chill effect made even more desolate by the oppressive audience noise.

After intermission came a gloriously blossoming account of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 6. Nelson stressed expansive songfulness, enforcing a broad dynamic range, warm sound and integrated textures.

The legato lyricism seemed overdone in the Scherzo, powerful but strangely unaccented at times. Elsewhere the effect was one of noble sweep and generous spirit, firmly directed forward.

The program was repeated Friday afternoon, and the final concert of the series is Sunday.