Suspense adds to experience as philharmonic, soloist shine

By Joe Brown

Monday, Sept. 8, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Something was missing at the Las Vegas Philharmonic’s season-greeting 10th anniversary concert Saturday night at UNLV’s Artemus Ham Hall. The musicians were onstage, beginning Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero.” But where was the conductor?

A percussionist stood center stage, rattling the continuous, insistent martial cadence on a snare drum, surrounded by several musicians plucking the insistent pulse on bass and cello. One by one, more musicians walked onstage with their instruments — oboe, harp, English horn, violins and violas — taking their seats just in time to add their voices to the growing whole.

The arrival of the big bass drum, along with conductor David Itkin — there he is! — signaled the imminent climax of the piece, which arrived with a shiver of trumpets, as if the circus had just arrived in town. The audience was thrilled, rewarding the orchestra with the first of three standing, shouting ovations.

A grandfather to modern minimalism, with its almost obsessive reiteration and accumulation of patterns and its sloooooow build to crescendo, the 80-year-old “Bolero” has become almost anodyne over time, sort of make-out music cliche. It’s such a familiar work — perhaps too familiar — and Itkin’s clever coup made it sound (and look) fresh.

This delightfully dramatic opening gambit recalled the grandiose ’70s prog-rock opus “Tubular Bells,” with its gradual introduction of instruments, and Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense” tour and film, both of which introduced musicians and instruments piece by piece, resulting in an exultant clamor. Itkin’s conceit served as overture and hors d’oeuvre and doubled as a visual metaphor for an orchestra coming together — judging from the fine, well-balanced playing on Saturday night, that’s what’s happening with our young Philharmonic under this second-year music director and conductor.

The evening’s theatricality continued with the second piece, which was preceded by a refreshingly informal bit of show business. Musicians opened a hidden door at the side of the stage and wheeled out a gleaming black grand piano for Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, which would be marking its 140th anniversary.

The guest soloist, the dashing pianist Misha Dichter, was an impressive “get” for the Philharmonic, and the Romantic favorite was an almost Olympic showcase for the impressive soloist.

After an intermission, the Philharmonic settled in for the main course, Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7 in D minor, another Romantic piece, and one of the composer’s less familiar but more substantial works. Itkin suggested the audience imagine “drunken rampaging villagers” under “a mysterious moonlight,” and the orchestra evoked a nocturnal melodicism. The playing was strong and fiery on the energetic, danceable moments of the work, but lost focus in the softer, subtler second movement, springing back to life for the vigorous scherzo and finale.

In addition to his evident wit and stage smarts, Itkin is a lively, fun conductor to watch, and the audience can really hear the changes in sound that his gestures signify.

As the conductor and more than 80 musicians took their third and final bows, I had to resist the impulse to shout “Play ‘Bolero’ again!”