Jarvi Brings His Own Spirit to Philharmonic

One of the joys of going to hear the Los Angeles Philharmonic on a regular basis, or any major orchestra for that matter, is sampling and assessing the conductorial flavor of the week.

This modern situation, whereby a music director leads X weeks (usually a small percentage) of his orchestra’s concerts and a parade of jet-setting guest conductors leads the rest, is a much-debated phenomenon. This season, for instance, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts only 36% of the Philharmonic’s subscription programs.

The downside of this situation has been extensively argued, but there are advantages too. For one, you’re less likely to have to suffer through a music director’s performances of music for which he has no feeling or expertise. For another, the jet-setters can pack their bags with their musical specialties--in the week or two we hear them, we get nothing but their best stuff.

Which appeared to be the case on Friday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, when Paavo conducted the Philharmonic in music quite apparently close to his heart. And his easy rapport with the orchestra brought it off.

The Estonian-born Jarvi, 34, son of conductor Neeme and principal guest conductor of both the Royal Stockholm Orchestra and the City of Birmingham Symphony, opened with an appetizer from his homeland, Erkki-Sven Tuur’s 1989 “Insula Deserta.”

Stylistically, the nine-minute work is a kissing cousin to the music of Arvo Part, though without its holy overtones. The simple harmonies and motor rhythms of minimalism are skillfully combined with glistening dissonances and flashes of mayhem, both of which are used more in an ornamental, rather than disturbing, way. Orchestrated pristinely for strings, “Insula Deserta” has a kind of icy beauty even in its densest (passing) discords, tickling, or at most nipping at, the ear, not assaulting it. Jarvi drew a carefully paced, texturally calibrated reading.

He turned to the theatrical throes of Mahler’s First Symphony after intermission, in a seasoned and distinctive interpretation. From the start, it was evident that Jarvi had things to say, creating an especially delicate and pastoral feeling in the opening pages out of which instrumental detail popped up like graphics. He captured the Viennese flavors of the work with fluid, elegant tempo control and an almost frothy touch.

From this essentially easygoing base, with tempos often on the slow side of standard but never static, he turned on a dime to thunderous, brassy climaxes, visceral rather than heavy, to which the strings contributed sinewy muscle. The young conductor sounded as if he were having a good time--he was, in fact, frequently smiling--and the Philharmonic responded in kind.