ADAMS CONDUCTS OWN WORKS ... WITH PHIL'S HELP.

Byline: David Mermelstein Correspondent

Sometimes the Los Angeles Philharmonic schedules concerts so right, we forget there are other orchestras. This past weekend was such an occasion, with composer John Adams conducting his own scores. The program was ideal: Adams' recent piano concerto, ``Century Rolls,'' and excerpts from his best-known opera, ``Nixon in China.'' The Philharmonic's crack, committed playing only enhanced matters.

On Sunday afternoon, a relaxed, congenial Adams spoke from the stage. ``You don't sound like an audience nervous about contemporary music,'' he joked before informing the crowd that his 1997 concerto was modeled on similar works by Gershwin, Ravel and Copland. Emanuel Ax, for whom the concerto was written, was the piano soloist.

Adams' concerto, which does indeed summon time past, is nothing if not easy on the ears. It begins with the repeated figures so characteristic of this most imaginative of musical minimalists and adds to that a virtuosic piano part, which Ax handled with easy flair.

The composer has always been one for clever titles, and the second and third movements of ``Century Rolls'' bear typically cheeky names. ``Manny's Gym'' refers to the gentle gymnopedia, aptly reminiscent of music by Eric Satie, Adams wrote for Ax, which the pianist here played with lovely, limpid transparency. ``Hail Bop'' is the product of a misunderstanding, or so Adams claims, in which he mistakenly believed the comet Hale-Bopp was named as a salute to jazz. When he learned it wasn't, he created his own homage. In fact, the music owes its deepest debt to the work of Conlon Nancarrow, whose recondite compositions for player piano (note the ``rolls'' in ``Century Rolls'') both baffle and engage music lovers.

Unlike many composers, Adams is a natural on the podium. As he has before, he led the Philharmonic with grace and authority, coaxing sensitive playing from the woodwinds and strings in the concerto's middle movement. In the finale, he achieved an attractive loping quality and kept the brasses insistent, rather than aggressive.

The scenes from ``Nixon in China,'' which Adams pointlessly calls ``The Nixon Tapes,'' are an excellent, cost-effective concert distillation of Adams' seminal opera. Essentially a conflation of the opera's most memorable arias, one outstanding chorus and some nonvocal sections of the score, ``The Nixon Tapes'' carries the power of memory, reminding listeners just how distinctive and beautiful this score is.

But though the Philharmonic assembled a fine cast for its purposes, one voice overshadowed the rest. Baritone James Maddalena originated the role of Nixon back in 1987, and his characterization is a wonder, almost a second skin. Less memorable, though still good, were soprano Susan Narucki as Pat Nixon, William Sharp as Cho En-lai and bass John Ames as Henry Kissinger. The Los Angeles Master Chorale (prepared by Grant Gershon) handled its staccato assignments effectively. And the Philharmonic lent a rare sense of occasion to its playing.