Brassy City Makes Room for Brahms

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 16 — Orchestras tend to take on the character of their hometowns and their music directors, at least when the chemistry between the players, the place and the conductor is right. This has certainly been true of the Los Angeles Philharmonic during the dynamic tenure of Esa-Pekka Salonen. A brilliant conductor with an adventurous streak as well as an active composer of bracingly contemporary works, Mr. Salonen has built the Philharmonic into an orchestra that excels in Stravinsky, Messiaen and Ligeti and has made it a home away from home for composers like John Adams, Thomas Adès and Kaija Saariaho.

In 2003 when the orchestra moved into its new home, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which immediately became the coolest concert hall in America, this fortified the Philharmonic’s reputation as a brassy, modern and risk-taking ensemble. Even when Mr. Salonen programs staples like the Beethoven symphonies, he tends to pair them in intriguing ways with contemporary works.So, paradoxically, it was news when Christoph von Dohnanyi, the 77-year-old German maestro, took the podium at Disney Hall on Thursday night to begin a two-week survey of the four Brahms symphonies. What would have been routine programming elsewhere seemed a bold departure in Los Angeles. Audiences here have not heard these scores all that often.

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