Friday at Walt Disney Concert Hall, conductor Edo de Waart led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a three-part program that began with subtle Chinese philosophy and ended in Germanic self-aggrandizement.
De Waart opened the program with the orchestra’s first performance of Qigang Chen’s “The Five Elements,” a delicate and appealing 10-minute tone poem inspired by traditional Chinese beliefs about the building blocks of the universe.
The work unfolded in two-minute sections titled “Water,” “Wood,” “Fire,” “Earth” and “Metal.” Each part had a distinct orchestration and tempo, beginning with the slow, Debussy-like fluidity of “Water” and ending with the quick, perky dance rhythms in “Metal.”
CLASSICAL20.COM 
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