CLASSIC TORADZE HE PUNCHES, HE TWISTS, HE GROWNS.

Byline: Donna Perlmutter Special to the Daily News

Seeing is believing.

The first sign came with the stage crew battening down the piano leg rollers to the floor. (Was the earth about to move?) A minute later Alexander Toradze made his entrance before the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Friday and, in no time, established ownership of the gargantuan Rachmaninoff Third Concerto - and why the instrument needed to be secured.

His fists punched the air overhead, punctuating a phrase. His ample body twisted fully to the orchestra in intensely collaborative moments. His feet stamped out the percussion of furious octaves and at times, lifted him off the bench (yes, the Steinway could have rolled away under such force.) From somewhere deep in his throat came spasmodic groans. He mopped his brow with a hanky when possible and with both sleeves when not.

True, just hitting all the zillion notes and getting through Rachmaninoff's Revenge can make a hero of most contenders. No one does it without seating blood. But when virtuosity is allied to pantomime, as happened here, proof is brought home to audiences. It was to this one, which jumped to its feet for round after round of thunderous ovation - fueled perhaps by the Russian pianist's long-held bear hug of his chief collaborator, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and by his refusals to take a solo bow.

But for some skeptics the performance lacked the deep, heaving sighs that spell the composer. It was overly controlled and dissected - when breadth and flow and sweep and continuity would appear to be the real challenge. For a piece that already borders on the disjunctive, Toradze's approach made it more so.

He did opt for intimacy in the sustained lyric parts, and indeed made much of his light, airy touch and daring softness. But the high-decibel percussion was clangorous and hardly had the rich sonority of a Horowitz or Cliburn.

Salonen did not always complement his soloist with the exact orchestral dynamics, but then he had an unusually difficult task.

Before and after all the pandemonium the music director turned to the hazy languor of Debussy. First there was the "Prelude a'apres-midi d'un faune," dispatched with delicately calibrated balances that revealed the ensemble's silken sheen and led by Janet Ferguson's coolly fabulous flute work.

Finally came "Images," another Salonen favorite, and with it a prism of distinctive sounds wrapped in dance rhythms - a merging of playful, mysterious, lush and shadowy motifs, Just the sort of cerebral/sonic subtlety he thrives on and does so well.