A CONCERTO AS WELCOME AS A FRIEND.

Byline: David Mermelstein Correspondent

With good friends, you don't mind frequent visits. So it was with welcome arms that music lovers greeted Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor on Thursday night at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic had played the piece just a few months ago, at the Hollywood Bowl with Hilary Hahn as soloist. Now it was Joshua's Bell's turn. But Mendelssohn and Bell weren't the only returning favorites. The estimable Herbert Blomstedt stood on the podium, the first of this season's guest conductors. He'd not been absent long, having led the Philharmonic from the same spot in April.

The danger with any work as familiar as the Mendelssohn is that both orchestra and soloist can play it on autopilot. But that didn't happen here. Bell -- rakishly decked out in all black, with an untucked shirt and a very open collar -- offered a performance notably lean, nuanced and vibrant.

Blomstedt's support was equally energetic, with the orchestra complementing the violinist's intense performance with its own impassioned yet precise playing.

Bell injected his own cadenza into the concerto's first movement, but there was nothing wrong with that. Virtuosic in the manner of Paganini and Sarasate -- two 19th-century masters of the fiddle -- it furthered the sense that the soloist was rethinking this war horse. It also suggests that he is inhabiting his interpretations with greater personality, something to which his recent best-selling album, ``Voice of the Violin'' (Sony Classical), also attests.

In the concerto's second movement, beautifully conceived in this instance, Bell provided throbbing tone against glowing support from the orchestra. The finale proved particularly surprising, with Bell eschewing pure speed in favor of a state of adventure, freshness and excitement. Oh, sure, there was plenty of quicksilver, but fluency and felicity were the goal. Blomstedt opted for contrasts, allowing the brasses to blare at times and yet still managing elegant and graceful accompaniment.

Those who appreciate Bell's artistry will be glad to learn that in addition to this program, he returns to Disney Hall several times over the next few weeks for chamber music and solo appearances with the orchestra. He also travels with the Philharmonic to Santa Barbara on Nov. 4.

Blomstedt's retiring manner on the podium can sometimes fool listeners into thinking him a passive maestro. He is anything but, as the performance of Schubert's Symphony No. 9 (``The Great C major'') proved. To be sure, Blomstedt revealed his hand gradually -- it is a long symphony, after all -- so that what first seemed a calm and collected reading became increasingly dynamic, even fevered.

And though I've never heard more frenzied page-turning on Disney Hall's music stands than at this concert, there was never the sense that discipline was waning, even when the orchestra surged.

The second movement was practically operatic, and what the third-movement scherzo lacked in joy it made up for in tightly focused string sound. In the finale, Blomstedt got off to a flying start and never let up. Yet there was songfulness, too, especially from the Philharmonic's new principal oboe, Ariana Ghez, whose lambent work was rightly singled out by the conductor at the performance's conclusion.

HERBERT BLOMSTEDT CONDUCTS THE L.A. PHILHARMONIC, WITH VIOLINIST JOSHUA BELL - Three and one half stars

What: Guest conductor Herbert Blomstedt leads the orchestra in Mendelssohn's E minor Violin Concerto and Schubert's Symphony No. 9.

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 2 p.m. today and Sunday.

Tickets: $15 to $135. [phone]. www.laphil.com.

In a nutshell: Two welcome guests, violinist Joshua Bell and conductor Herbert Blomstedt, enliven a Philharmonic program of familiar music.

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Photo:

Joshua Bell's performances with the L.A. Philharmonic will be followed by several more at Disney Hall in coming weeks.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images