L.A. Philharmonic Presents an Energy-Filled Stravinsky

Thursday night in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with Russian soloist Viktoria Mullova, gave the first of four performances alternating violin concertos by Stravinsky and Bartok. Next week, the same forces will be recording these works.

Mullova, in a persimmon-red gown over black tights, played the Stravinsky work energetically, with a full but raw tone and little polish; afterward, an enthusiastic audience cheered her efforts.

This was a full-blooded but monochromatic reading of a work filled with subtleties and fine lines. Although Mullova’s approach appealed to her listeners, its charms were more kinetic than eloquent, and the overall performance, to which Salonen and the orchestra contributed wholeheartedly, lacked the elegance usually associated with the piece.

Lack of polish also marked Salonen’s revival of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony; he last conducted it here in 1988. In the conductor’s hands, the work traverses its separate parts without a convincing and tight sense of continuity.

The opening Adagio, for instance, instead of emerging fraught with tension that is then released as the Allegro vivace begins, fell flat.

The inner movements, mechanically more successful, kept a nice balance between the lyric and the bucolic. Then, at the finale, just as the work began to jell, the conductor fell into the trap of too much speed, too little ebullience.

Opposite qualities came to the fore in the program opening, when Brahms’ beloved Variations on a Theme of Haydn became an exercise in somnolence, muddy textures and a measurable lack of clarity.

* L.A. Philharmonic, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, with Viktoria Mullova, plays Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, tonight, 8 p.m., and Sunday, 2:30 p.m., Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave. $8 to $60. (213) 365-3500.