MUSIC REVIEW : Cellist Schiff in U.S. Conducting Debut

Solo musicians of every stripe--tenors, trumpeters and violists, not to mention the predictable violinists and cellists--turn to conducting routinely, at mid-career. Many are competent, but few were born to the podium.

Heinrich Schiff, the Austrian cellist who made strong impressions in two earlier visits as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic--in 1989 and 1993, respectively--returned to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion this week, appearing not only as featured soloist but as conductor. Indeed, though Schiff has held podium posts in Germany and England for some years, this was his U.S. debut in that capacity.

Not to waffle: His talent and accomplishment, as displayed in an exposing program of music by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Haydn and Beethoven, is deeply impressive. Schiff looks and moves like a born leader, his confidence and authority occupy a high level, and he commands an irrepressible personality in front of an orchestra.

His way with Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, the climax of his program, may not have savored myriad details or nuances, yet it displayed vigor, commitment, projection and a penchant for communicating the important things first. Much of what seemed to provoke the Wednesday night Philharmonic subscribers to enthusiastic applause was in fact too fast for elegance; the Allegro vivace after the opening introduction, for instance, emerged breathless and overexuberant.

Yet it spoke to the listener. And the subsequent slow movement--paced at the fast end of Adagio--revealed inner workings, subtexts, wonderful contrasts, in short, the actual materials of the composer’s compositional probings.

More conductorial digging, and splendid orchestral collaboration, characterized the Scherzo; the finale, articulate and vibrant, if not consistently immaculate, swept away any remaining reservations about this leader’s gifts.

Accompanying himself in Haydn’s C-major Cello Concerto, Schiff also chose smart-aleck tempos that he made work through contagious energy. The joys of the Adagio were subtle: The cellist’s use of a broad dynamic palette strongest at the soft end; his underlining of many telling details within a seamless fabric of sound; his matching of materials to expressiveness.

Preceding the buoyant Classical-period works, Schiff chose Zimmermann’s contrasting Concerto for String Orchestra (1948), a bleak, post-serial soundscape and a work of sad reflection and pessimistic perspective--Hindemith without the charm. In its brave fatalism, it creates a tensile beauty. As a set-up for major-key, Haydn and Beethoven, it could not be more appropriate.

* L.A. Philharmonic, conducted by Heinrich Schiff. Remaining performances: Today at 1:30 p.m., Sunday at 2:30 p.m., in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., (213) 850-2000. Also, Saturday at 8 p.m. in Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, (714) 740-2000. Tickets: $13-$35.