MUSIC REVIEW : Jansons Opens Celebration of Tchaikovsky

Why a Tchaikovsky festival? Among other viable reasons, because a conductor of true conviction and genuine expertise has arrived on the scene ready to resurvey some of the high points of the Russian composer’s catalogue.

Mariss Jansons, the Leningrad-trained, Latvian-born musician who now leads the Oslo Philharmonic, is such a conductor. In his debut appearances with a U.S. orchestra Friday and Saturday nights, Jansons justified the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s current four-concert Tchaikovsky celebration.

In the acoustically quirky Wiltern Theatre, not all of the aural joys in the Second and Sixth symphonies, Violin Concerto, Second Piano Concerto and “Francesca da Rimini” may have traveled effectively to many parts of the house. Still, Jansons showed himself a valuable and commanding leader, one who balances rhythmic solidity with plasticity of line, emotional intensity with architectonic directness.

He seems neither a self-indulgent nor a pedantic Tchaikovskian. He savors details, gives inner voices room to breathe, yet does not overload the musical landscape; when the climaxes come, they are well-prepared, expansive and special.

On Saturday, he encouraged natural exuberance in the Philharmonic’s well-routined playing of the third movement of the “Pathetique,” but left room for further dynamic expansion in the wrenching finale. When that emotional peak arrived, it topped anything that had preceded it, in both evenings. Now, that’s pacing.

The Second Symphony, on Friday, received similar loving treatment, virtually immaculate on the part of the orchestra, and handsomely detailed by the stoical, non-dancing conductor. There are more facets and more emotional juices in “Francesca da Rimini” than Jansons chose to extract, but his bombastic, extroverted and single-minded reading certainly traveled a straight musical line. On both nights, solo lines from within the ensemble were delivered with affecting nuance.

And the spotlighted soloists added excitement. Friday, Joseph Swensen gave a fully virtuosic but surprisingly mellow performance of the Violin Concerto, achieving a poignant slow movement as well as the expected fireworks in the outer portions.

Ilana Vered brought her customary panache and resourceful pianism to the wonderful complexities of the Second Concerto, Saturday. Still, one seemed to miss all the myriad moods and emotional shades in the work; was the piano Vered played upon the culprit, or was it the odd sound-profile of the Wiltern? Curious.