Music Reviews : L.A. Philharmonic in Freeway Series

COSTA MESA — It was not the usual weekend for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, by any measure. To begin with, the orchestra made a freeway series of its concerts, running down to Orange County Saturday.

That in itself is not unprecedented--which was just the point. Thirty years ago Zubin Mehta conducted the Philharmonic in its first concert under the auspices of the Orange County Philharmonic Society, which has brought the orchestra back regularly ever since. Mehta and the Philharmonic also gave the inaugural concert in the Orange County Performing Arts Center in 1986.

This long and productive relationship was celebrated Saturday at Segerstrom Hall in the best way--exhilarating performances of an intelligent program, with all the speeches and awards saved for dinner afterward.

Mehta was again on the podium. His canny, quirky program for home consumption at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion got radically revamped into a more conventional but still attractive agenda for Orange County.

It began with the premiere of Jacob Druckman’s “Seraphic Games,” a glittering prelude commissioned specifically for the occasion. Its eventful 8 minutes offer a substantial catalogue of orchestral effects, a rich aural fantasy full of murmurous suggestions and thundering commandments.

The solo honors were seized with heroic glory by baritone Thomas Hampson. He brought vocal warmth and power, and complete textual clarity and sympathy to bear on eight of the early Mahler songs arranged by Luciano Berio, some in honor of Mehta’s 50th birthday six years ago.

Hampson projected the full spectrum of relevant emotion, from the boisterous “Um schimme Kinder artig zu machen” through the heavy romantic despair of “Nicht Wiedersehen” to the rapt nostalgia of “Erinnerung.” He did so with a compelling naturalness that never drew attention to the sophisticated artistry and imposing technique underneath.

Mehta and the Philharmonic accompanied with accommodating regard for both the singer and the sensitive scoring. Several of the songs ended with Hampson submerged in a sudden flood of sound, but for the most part the baritone held the foreground easily.

Set against this were standards, Schubert’s “Unfinished” and Beethoven’s Eighth symphonies. Mehta played the Schubert for spacious poetry, the Beethoven for exuberant nose-thumbing.

For its home audience, the Philharmonic dispensed with the Beethoven, closing instead with the “Unfinished” for a very different effect following, rather than preceding, the Mahler songs. Mehta launched the intriguing sequence Friday and Sunday with Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” Quartet as arranged for string orchestra by Mahler.

The emphasis on articulate clarity that informed performances on both programs began there, but little else was in common between the two Schubert works in Mehta’s interpretations. Though he took an unhurried--but far from inert--approach to the symphony, he drove the quartet hard, sacrificing much in the cause of muscular dynamism.

A slightly reduced Philharmonic string contingent followed him with vigor and big sound Friday.