CROWD: WHERE'S MUSIC?

Byline: David Mermelstein Correspondent

Friday evening's Los Angeles Philharmonic concert, the first of the year, was to have been a joyous event. Esa-Pekka Salonen, the orchestra's charismatic Finnish conductor, had returned from a yearlong sabbatical, and the Philharmonic powers that be deemed the occasion worthy of celebration. The music itself - while great Haydn and Bruckner symphonies were standard fare - hardly suggested anything beyond business as usual, so perhaps that's why speeches and a champagne toast were hastily grafted on to the program.

Bad idea. Philharmonic audiences don't need free liquor or self- indulgent oratory; they crave music's own intoxication. Salonen and the Philharmonic offered dutiful but hardly inspired readings Friday night, and framing them with such fanfare lessened rather than heightened the impact.

Things got off to a poor start when an obviously ill-prepared and nervous Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic's managing director, presaged the music with a hollow speech. Patrons greeted her remarks coolly, in marked contrast to the heartfelt and enthusiastic reception showered on Salonen when he took the podium. At last, patrons seemed to sigh, music.

Haydn's Symphony No. 99 is among the composer's last and best symphonies. In Salonen's hands, it sounded graceful, pointed, clean. The Philharmonic woodwinds, especially, produced pellucid tones, and the strings, reduced for this work, lent buoyancy. And yet there was a sense of holding back, as though the orchestra was not quite used to having its maestro back.

Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, here played in the Nowak edition, is a far more ambitious work. Salonen and the orchestra captured its power and sense of atmosphere, but not its nobility or sweep. Bruckner's symphonies are often perceived as disjointed or rambling, and for good reason: Most conductors find isolating the structure in these works elusive.

Alas, Salonen, too, failed to make much sense of this score. Yet the conductor's measured interpretation evinced real feeling, and his attention to sonic expression filled the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with music only a first-rate orchestra can make. In the adagio, lush but muscular string playing blended persuasively with sonorous, mellow brass tones. And the finale was bold and even stately, though not as involving as it might have been.

After the concert, the audience was urged to the Grand Hall, where champagne freely flowed, and Salonen was the subject of more blather by Borda and others. But leave it to this conductor to set things right, his dry wit instantly erasing the situation's awkwardness. Smartly, Salonen concluded his self-effacing remarks, and the evening, with a charming joke.