MUSIC REVIEW

By Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Stéphane Denève is a popular young conductor who seems on the verge of landing a major orchestra. He is well liked by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its audiences. So it was amusing -- even heartwarming -- to sense the obvious delight at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Thursday night despite Denève's cancellation.

The news was good all around. One young French conductor had been happily sidelined by the birth of his first child. Another very young Frenchman happened to be on hand to happily take over the program.

ADVERTISEMENT

Lionel Bringuier, the Philharmonic's 21-year-old assistant conductor, has led youth concerts and a Green Umbrella night and was the second conductor to Lorin Maazel in Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem" at Disney in January. But Thursday's subscription program was the big time.

The cancellation actually occurred late last week, which allowed Bringuier a full rehearsal schedule. This was, then, not the kind of last-minute replacement that catapulted Leonard Bernstein to fame in New York in 1943 or boosted Esa-Pekka Salonen in London 40 years later. Rather than surprise, anticipation was in the air. Bringuier has already generated much interest in Europe, where he is a busy guest conductor.

Denève's program, French music written between 1917 and 1932, was a challenge, and Bringuier retained the lineup. He opened and closed with Ravel -- "Le Tombeau de Couperin" and "La Valse" -- pieces with which the composer, an army driver during World War I, movingly settled his debt to a culture that had disappeared.

The other works -- Poulenc's Concerto for Two Pianos and Albert Roussel's Third Symphony -- were from the beginning of the 1930s, the end of what has been described as the Harlequin years in Paris. Poulenc's urbane score contains anarchic blasts of street life, Dada, a hint of an exotic Balinese gamelan and marvelous melodies, spongy and sweet as madeleines. Roussel's symphony has harder edges, shoots more threatening sparks, senses trouble ahead.

A 21-year-old cannot be expected to bring a lot of life experience to music from a period when young men his age already had far too much and didn't care to fret over the future. Thursday, moreover, only one member in the orchestra was younger than the slender, unprepossessing youth commanding it. But what Bringuier lacks in macho military presence he makes up for with musical fluency and an easygoing charm. He is a natural on the podium.

He began uneventfully, with a delicate, hazy "Tombeau de Couperin." But the Poulenc was a startling wake-up call. And Bringuier had the advantage of two pianists, Frank Braley and Eric Le Sage, who recently recorded the concerto with Denève. They form a dazzling team that creates a joint chrome-bright percussive tone.

In this irresistible concerto, Poulenc is a Parisian about town. He never stays long anywhere, just long enough to swoon over a prostitute, to have a quick dance, to take a sip of absinthe.

A glittery gamelan imitation from the two pianos in the second movement enchants. Silly percussion in the first movement spoofs the Modernists. The score and Bringuier, with his irrepressible pianists, dashed and darted in the best of humors.

Roussel's symphony, commissioned by the Boston Symphony in 1930, is militant and compelling. Bringuier doesn't conserve energy. He has yet to focus on inner detail and texture, as French conductors tend to do. But a Boulez or Munch is not born overnight. And the energy Bringuier released was not wasted.

In the hard-hitting first movement, the symphony's sparks did indeed fly. Roussel goes in and out of fashion, and the kind of cinematic panorama he could sometimes create is starting to make him seem current once more. Bringuier conducted the Third Symphony in engaging arcs that kept it active and alive.

"La Valse" is a dance of the living dead. The piece can be interpreted as a macabre celebration, sending the waltzing enemy to Hades. Or it can be a sad reflection on the loss of a carefree way of life. Bringuier allowed Ravel his explosions, but they weren't sad. For someone this conductor's age, the waltz died a long time ago and needs no mourning. He can simply have a ball, and he did.

All evening the Philharmonic's supple and responsive playing gave Bringuier the benefit of the doubt. And that playing left little doubt that the concert was the start of something big.

mark.swed@latimes.com