MUSIC REVIEW : Antonio Pappano Leads Philharmonic

Doldrums can sometimes happen at this time of the season--after the Christmas break and before the frenzy of winter activity. One wondered if such was the case when a virtually unknown, young American conductor making his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut over the weekend was greeted not by the usual happy-but-hyper Friday night crowd, but by a lot of apparently unsophisticated concert-goers who applauded in all the wrong places.

The audience’s enthusiasm, as it turned out, was not misguided, though it was misplaced. Antonio Pappano, born in 1963, gave a solid and engaging account of his musical credentials when he led the Philharmonic in a Haydn-Hindemith-Richard Strauss program in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Years in the opera house, culminating in his recent appointment as music director of the Theatre Royal de Monnaie in Brussels, have given Pappano not only experience but authority.

He brought both to assignments small--Haydn’s chamber-size Symphony No. 22, “The Philosopher”--and large--Strauss’ resource-demanding tone-poem, “Also sprach Zarathustra.”

In each, he coaxed clearly thought-out, finely paced readings from our orchestra and bright contributions from its soloists. Haydn’s faceted, handsomely economical work emerged with all its charms and details on display, if not always fully transparent.

Strauss’ large-breathed musical philosophizing did not wander, or turn to bombast, as it can, but instead moved forward persuasively.

Jerry Folsom, a Philharmonic principal, was soloist in the orchestra’s first-ever performance of Hindemith’s Horn Concerto, an irresistible, substantial and showy piece that Folsom made sound easy. The hornist fleshed out its details, conquered its intricacies and made light work of its heavy demands, all the while producing articulate and beauteous sounds.