A Rainy but Rousing Night at the Bowl

The rain came, but the concert went on. The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, conducted Thursday night by the strangely silent John Mauceri--he led the entire concert without saying a word to his audience--played its scheduled Tchaikovsky-Shostakovich program at the Bowl despite steady misting, which dripped rain onto the smaller-than-usual audience throughout the evening.

Still, those hardy music lovers heard a very satisfying performance, led with his usual panache by the vigorously gesturing Mauceri, whose soloist in the Violin Concerto by Tchaikovsky was the imperturbable Gil Shaham, a veteran of outdoor events, but probably few as wet as this one.

A tarpaulin usually used for shading daytime rehearsals was installed at the concert’s beginning, no doubt to protect the performers, but the sound, well-managed by the Bowl’s acoustical engineers, emerged largely undistorted and quite clear by Bowl standards.

Shaham, who gave a resplendent, virtuosic and serene performance of the same concerto at the Bowl four years ago, repeated the feat. Nothing fazes him. Clearly, he has the Tchaikovsky urgency, passion and lyricism deep in his blood and fingers. Thursday night, he again made the old warhorse seem young and fresh. He created as much joy as the beloved and familiar piece probably contains. He was seconded neatly by Mauceri & Co.

After the intermission, the orchestra gave its own display of strong accomplishment and musical integration. Shostakovich’s popular Fifth Symphony received an appropriately colorful, dynamically broad, well-considered reading replete with telling details and a grand design.

The bombastic outer movements showed off the ensemble’s polished string-section resources and its powerful brass. And the touching slow movement revealed strong contributions from concertmaster Bruce Dukov and from clarinet, horn and harp soloists. Only the sardonic Scherzo lacked its characteristic lightness in setting up the seriousness of the following Largo.