The LA Phil began its fourth season at Disney Hall with the piece that started Salonen's career back in the day when he had to pinch conduct on short notice for Michael Tilson Thomas. This is the Mahler 3rd and was there ever a lot of it. There were also new faces on stage with every French horn in the city working, Ariana Ghez the young new principal oboist, timpanist Rainer Carroll taking over for the retired Mitchell Peters, and the puzzling absence of Janet Ferguson from the roster of flutes. And it didn't seem anywhere near ninety minutes long thanks to exceptionally well balanced and nuanced playing from all involved. The Phil's French horn section can occasionally slip as it did last year in a jarring Beethoven's Sixth but the augmented contingent was on its game. Trumpets onstage and off as were up to their usual caliber and trombonist James Miller got perhaps the loudest ovation of the evening during the curtain calls. Nothing could follow something of this magnitude, whether well-played or not. Nothing was programmed before it or after it. Salonen and Borda did the preconcert Q&A. Although his spoken English is still a little choppy, Salonen gave quite an erudite and often witty account of the piece as he saw it as a youngster, having to learn it in five days, and as he sees it today. And in an unusual turn for these kinds of talks, he said it was in many ways an imperfect piece but in every way a vision of Mahler's perfect world. His claims for the orchestra playing the dynamic range of the hall to the hilt were on the mark. Acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota correctly predicted well before the inaugural season that the musicians of that caliber would adjust to the hall in the fullness of time and adapt their sound to it. The season is off to a good start. Ravi Narasimhan Redondo Beach, CA