A Debut With Many Diversions

Despite recurring moments of mundane leadership, some ragged orchestral execution and a few noisy aerial intrusions, Nicholas McGegan’s debut as guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl went pretty well.

The ensemble, reduced to 45, played neatly and crisply much of the time. The English-born conductor--who holds European opera posts and has spent much of the last decade in California--showed genuine affection and an unaggressive stylishness in a program of music by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. And the soloists added luster to the agenda.

But the passing aircraft, mostly during the second movement of Symphony No. 32, K. 318, distracted greatly from the music-making. And low energy from McGegan, particularly in the opening movements of Schubert’s beloved Symphony No. 5, made the proceedings less than compelling.

The irresistible center of this performance turned out to be pianist Robert Levin’s articulate and ebullient playing of the D-minor Concerto, K. 466. Eschewing the current fashion for making this first movement the occasion for tragic emotions, Levin--who played a late 20th century Steinway, not the fortepiano, which was promised at one point (an error in an early press release)--proved that stoicism can be as communicative as overstatement.

His handsome and free-flowing decoration of the repeated melodies in the Romance made that familiar movement ring fresh. His way with the finale also brought new joys to a piece one too often takes for granted.

At the coda of that movement, when the orchestra breaks into the major mode, Levin simply turned toward the audience and beamed. The message of that moment could not be misunderstood.

Mark Baranov, the Philharmonic’s assistant concertmaster, was the soloist in Beethoven’s F-major Romance. His seamless reading, nicely seconded by McGegan and the orchestra, made the piece as elegant and pristine as it can be.