MUSIC REVIEW : Rattle’s Slavic Rarities Invigorate Philharmonic

Simon Rattle holds a nice title. The program magazine at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion officially lists him as principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Nevertheless, the relationship between the dynamic British maestro and our uneven orchestra has been a bit tenuous in recent seasons.

Title or no title, we don’t get to see nearly enough of Rattle. That was all too clear Friday night. With extraordinarily imaginative programming and remarkably vital music-making, he reminded us that orchestral concerts at the Music Center don’t have to be dull and dutiful.

Rattle actually made the Philharmonic play as if lives were at stake. He even made the Los Angeles Master Chorale, which we had feared was languishing in decline, sing with breadth, fervor and precision. He made the audience sit up and listen.

His unorthodox agenda began with some chamber music: Dvorak’s D-minor Serenade for winds, cello and bass. It is a wonderful, often surprising juxtaposition of gentle lyric indulgences, muted dramatic contradictions, bucolic sighs and angelic whispers.

Rattle guided 13 Philharmonic virtuosos through its convoluted course, enforcing buoyant spirit and stressing earthy charm at every turn. Even in a 3,200-seat cavern, he kept the scale intimate and the textures transparent.

Then he turned to weighty matters: the eerily poignant “Stabat Mater” of Karol Szymanowski and, for a grandiose climax, the shattering “Glagolitic Mass” of Leos Janacek.

Both works are remarkably ambitious, and both strikingly original. Until recently, both were unjustly neglected. Both date to the 1920s and attest to a declining but still arresting romantic impulse.

Both approach the religious text from a certain subjective distance. Most telling, perhaps, both impose nationalistic accents on the universal rituals. Still, the two are very different.

In his “Stabat Mater,” Szymanowski combined the primitive plaints of a specific folk idiom with stark modal devices that have obvious roots in the church. He respected the old cantabile laws, only to jolt expectations with bleak harmonies in edgy progressions.

Rattle chose the traditional Latin text rather than the 13th-Century Polish translation preferred by the composer. That probably was the conductor’s only concession to expediency. He led a heroic performance notable for clarity of purpose and tautness of line.

The vocal trio was strong. Susan Patterson of the San Francisco Opera, a late replacement for the indisposed Gabriela Benackova, brought sweetness and purity to the arching soprano phrases. Marietta Simpson countered with lush yet well-focused mezzo-soprano tone, and Roger Roloff imbued the baritone solos with stalwart fervor.

Janacek’s Mass is even more daring than Szymanowski’s oratorio. It documents a highly inventive, wildly emotional, essentially secular interpretation of the sacred source.

The vocal writing, predicated on the inflections of the old Slavonic text, tends toward the terse and jagged. The most profound commentary is uttered by the orchestra, echoed by the chorus. An organ, first docile and then violent, sustains the point of ecclesiastical reference.

Inspired, we are told, by the torrential rains he endured in Luhacovice, Janacek created a mass that seethes with elemental passion. It isn’t neat.

It moans in agony, shrieks in terror, approaches hysteria in exultation. It affords only fragments of lyrical calm between massive dramatic storms.

Rattle conveyed the enormity of the rhetoric with dauntless conviction. Unlike some other interpreters, however, he resisted the pitfalls of expressive excess.

The somewhat troubled solo quartet was led by Linda Kelm, a relentlessly stentorian soprano drafted to replace Benackova. John Mitchinson, the British Tristan, faced the cruel tessitura of the tenor solos bravely.

Cherry Rhodes, the generally deft organist, got a bit flustered in the cataclysmic outbursts of the voluntary. Under the circumstances, that seemed understandable.