MUSIC REVIEW : Philharmonic Closes Season With Beethoven and Shapero

For the second April in a row, the German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter graces the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion this week in an appearance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Last year at this time, in a program devoted to Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, Mutter seemed like the opening act, which in fact she was--after all, the orchestra played, in a very inspired way, one of its specialties after intermission.

This year, Mutter’s vehicle is Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and the post-intermission orchestral piece has become Harold Shapero’s now-shopworn Symphony for Classical Orchestra (1947), a work first revived here by Andre Previn in the 1986-87 season, and trotted out generously again this year. At the Thursday night performance--with repeats scheduled Friday and Sunday, when the subscription season in the Pavilion ends--Mutter and Beethoven dominated the evening.

Mistress of her craft and an artist of seriousness, Mutter at 24 is capable of a probing, insightful and richly satisfying account of this most Olympian of concertos. This she achieved, with alert assistance from Previn and the Philharmonic.

The opening movement unfolded with logic, precision and a sense of inevitability, and was followed by as serene, yet highly detailed, a reading of the Larghetto as may have been heard in this room.

Mutter’s approach is pristine and analytical but not finicky, sweeping but nuance-rich. She observes Beethoven’s stylistic limitations carefully and saves the fireworks for the overheated Kreisler cadenzas, where they are appropriate. If, in seeking contrasts, she sometimes flirts with inaudibility, the dynamic point has been made.

Previn’s intended gesture in bringing back Shapero’s quirky homage to Stravinsky and Beethoven is no doubt admirable. The 41-year-old symphony may have been unduly neglected in these decades. But the chance to hear it again did not necessarily make it cherishable.

To some, it seems a one-joke piece, that joke being a kaleidoscopic view of Beethoven through 20th-Century devices. But Shapero, while making witty, cute and contemporary statements for 1947, seldom reveals himself as a musical personality of individual accent or compelling rhetoric.

In what might have been desperate attempts at being amusing, he makes a vice of eclecticism. The piece undoubtedly has charms. But they are not the kind to make one long to hear it again.

The performance on Thursday appeared to be expertly shaped and executed, Previn bringing conviction to all parts of this apparently sprawling canvas, the orchestra playing con brio. The composer, again, was present to acknowledge his applause.