Jarvi Leads Solid Philharmonic

Paavo Jarvi concluded his two-night visit to the Hollywood Bowl in this first week of the summer subscription season with another serious, faceted program, this one comprising a brief elegy by Arvo Part, the Violin Concerto of Beethoven and Sibelius’ craggy but lovable Fifth Symphony.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic, its sound unobtrusively delivered to the huge amphitheater by the resident aural engineers, was in good form and gave solid, if not always soaring, performances. The debuting soloist, violinist Elisabeth Batiashvili, a native of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, now a resident of Munich, played with polish, panache and deep acknowledgment of the masterpiece.

Jarvi, the Estonian musician at the helm of the Cincinnati Symphony, held the orchestra and this program together astutely, its details attended to, its continuity maintained. He let the quirky Sibelius work emerge in all its contrasts--with that granitic, unyielding opening movement, the lumbering butterfly that is its central Andante and its suddenly human-sized finale.

The young Batiashvili brought remarkable poise and mastery to the familiar Beethoven concerto, assisted nicely by stylish conducting and clean playing.

Part’s touching quasi-threnody, “Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten,” began the evening with appropriate seriousness and effectively quiet playing from the Philharmonic.