Music : Brown Plays, Leads ‘Four Seasons’

Given his present popularity, it is difficult to believe that as little as 40 years ago Vivaldi was something of an unknown quantity, his music little heard, his place in music history unassessed, even his birth date in question.

Today, when the likes of Iona Brown and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra give a concert devoted exclusively to his music--as they did Saturday night at Hollywood Bowl--it raises no eyebrows; indeed, it amounts to something of a pops event.

A wit once remarked that Vivaldi didn’t write 400 concertos--he wrote one and copied it 399 times. But it’s just this predictable quality--simply plug it in and it goes--that has helped make Vivaldi popular today. Few of the 12,015 at the Bowl Saturday could have been surprised by what they heard.

But that takes nothing away from Brown’s interpretation, as violinist and conductor, of “The Four Seasons.” Hers was no prettified rehash for the Sunday morning brunch set, but a vivid and often visceral performance. The familiar strains emerged in a pert and driven manner, at times clipped, in the nouveau-authentic style.

As conductor, she underlined tempo and dynamic contrasts and gave an impersonal fierceness to many of the pictorial elements. As soloist, she exerted herself with determined bravura, lending tautness to all she played, brashness to much of it, in near-immaculate execution.

The first half featured members of the orchestra as soloists. Allan Vogel capered briskly through the Oboe Concerto, RV 455, while cleanly articulating its not necessarily idiomatic virtuoso writing. Brown and partners projected almost jazzy impulses in the Concerto for Four Violins. David Shostac and Susan Greenberg, though labored at first, delivered the Concerto for Two Flutes, RV 533, with expressiveness and rich tone.