Music Review : Salonen Leads a Polished ‘Paukenmesse’

Twenty years seem to evaporate effortlessly when an organization is thriving. The 20 years that separated the first and second Los Angeles Philharmonic performances of Haydn’s “Paukenmesse,” for example.

In March 1976, then-Music Director Zubin Mehta introduced the work, also called “Mass in Time of War,” to Philharmonic audiences. This week, Esa-Pekka Salonen brought it back.

The earlier performance had proved lively and provocative. This one, heard Thursday night in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center, was a bright and almost breathtaking reminder of how far the Philharmonic has come in these two decades.

This mass setting, one of the fruits of the composer’s fecund final maturity, is glorious but exposing. It demands virtuosity all around: from four agile soloists, from the crucial choral body and from the symphonic ensemble at the core of the work. And it needs a conductor who can bring out its optimistic spiritual dimensions and its elegant worldly charms.

On Thursday, a young and high-achieving quartet--Julia Faulkner, Paula Rasmussen, Michael Schade and Nathan Berg--served as vocal jewels against the immaculate background provided by 40 singers of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. And the Philharmonic, clearly rehearsed to a high gloss, played brilliantly.

Salonen was the knowing catalyst in this aggressive, probing reading, one that let the text speak yet forged ahead in every moment. The smallish instrumental contingent--the violin section of which had not played the first half of the program and thus seemed particularly energetic and focused--excelled in bright accomplishment.

The vocal quartet produced mellowness, vocal thrust and Haydn-esque detail. Faulkner’s contributions predominated--singing above the staff, especially when it seems to come easily, always draws attention--but she was seconded in clarity of tone and textual sympathy by her colleagues. What a Ninth Symphony these four could achieve. . . .

The program began with Stravinsky. The pithy Symphonies of Wind Instruments, followed by the towering Symphony of Psalms, set up the secular/sacred environment common to both Haydn and the 20th century master.

Showcasing virtuosic winds in the first of these works and the long-term rapport between the Philharmonic and the L.A. Master Chorale in the second, Salonen held tight rein while letting the musicians do what they do and be who they are.

* The L.A. Philharmonic, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, repeats this program at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Sunday at 2:30 p.m. (213) 850-2000. Tickets: $6-$58.