‘Dharma’ gets even more right

“The Dharma at Big Sur,” the most daring, radical and enrapturing piece written for Walt Disney Concert Hall, just got better.

Dharma, of course, doesn’t get better. A lofty, many-faceted concept in Hinduism, it’s the law, cosmic and social; it’s the way the world is; it’s right action, duty. Music doesn’t really get better either. It, too, simply is. Sounds are what they are.

But musical right action, namely performance, can get things righter, can always be made to reveal more. Ears can always be trained to hear more. The environment can always be made more conducive for sound waves’ impact upon cochleae and consciousness. And so these things have now come to pass.

John Adams’ sassy, psychedelic ode to Beat deity Jack Kerouac and to the beloved California maverick composers Lou Harrison and Terry Riley, “Dharma” is a concerto for electric violin. That violin, as Tracy Silverman miraculously plays it, evokes Jimi Hendrix’s wailing electric guitar and Ravi Shankar’s astral sitar when it is not suggesting a mellow cello or even a plain old violin. The Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned the concerto for its opening concerts in Disney but performed it only once in the hall at one of those elite ceremonies. For the price of a pair of tickets, you could have bought a modest new car.

A single performance by the Philharmonic was later given at the Orange County Performing Arts Center (the Philharmonic Society of Orange County was a co-commissioner). But Thursday night, as part of the orchestra’s final program of its second Disney season, Esa-Pekka Salonen finally brought “Dharma” to the people.

Here’s what’s changed: The hall’s amplification has been tamed. Thanks to new speakers, Silverman’s electric violin, raw and raucous-sounding at the premiere, is now smooth and sinuous, and it no longer overwhelms the orchestra.

The orchestral backdrop now twinkles like sonic stars in the sky. Adams’ experiment of writing for just-intonation -- the pure tuning system esteemed by Harrison and Riley -- has been refined so that an orchestra can more readily grasp it.

And Silverman, in an inspiring display of dharmic duty, has astonishingly memorized difficult music. Every detail is notated. But his performance Thursday, during which he wandered around the stage, even executing a few slow whirling dervish twirls while playing, sounded free (if anything but easy) and improvised.

“Dharma,” in two connected parts, begins with a gradual exposure of equal-tempered sounds in the orchestra. The instrumentation is unusual. Onstage, there is a gap in the middle where the woodwinds usually sit. Amid a full contingent of strings, brass, two samplers and lots of percussion are a pair of bass clarinets and no other winds.

I’m not sure why this sounds Big Sur-ish, but it does. Somehow, the configuration helps open one’s ears to the purer intervals, making those intervals aurally fresh-feeling, scenic, unconventional and hip.

As in the two-part structure of a raga, the second section of “Dharma,” titled “Sri Moonshine” (after Riley’s Sierra Nevada ranch), is where the rhythmic energy accrues. And as at the climax of a raga, the ecstatic excitement just keeps building until it explodes.

Salonen quietly prepared the way for “Dharma” with Charles Ives’ “The Unanswered Question,” another reprise from Disney’s opening. The stage was bare. Flutes, trumpet and strings surrounded the audience from on high. The effect was magical.

Ravel’s complete ballet “Daphnis and Chloe,” a Salonen showpiece, was the concert closer. He lights it from within, detailing Ravel’s immoderate colors. The effect, though ever impressive and involving, tended toward the garish here and there. The Philharmonic will take this program to Lincoln Center in New York next week, and it could be that Salonen was preparing to cope with Avery Fisher Hall’s acoustic.

Still, the Ravel was a thrill, and the ending showed Salonen at his Bacchanalian best. With a few touch-ups and some toning down of the Pacific Chorale, “Daphnis” may well find its own dharma at Disney for the final performances this evening and Sunday afternoon. And remember, dharma or no dharma, the Philharmonic and Salonen (who will not appear at the Hollywood Bowl this summer) won’t return to Disney for four months.

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Los Angeles Philharmonic

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. today and 2 p.m. Sunday

Price: $36 to $125

Contact: (323) 850-2000 or www.laphil.org