By Mark Swed
Los Angeles Times

The concert was about to start and the hush was pregnant with, well, what?

Michael Tilson Thomas was back to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic. There was a full audience at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Neither of those was necessarily a certainty. Pandemic-battered audiences have been slow to return. MTT, as he is fondly known (and the 78-year-old conductor has been known to musical Angelenos since his days as a teenage prodigy here), was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer in the brain, in spring 2022 after undergoing an earlier surgery. He has been in treatment ever since.

The conductor did almost nothing after acknowledging the warm and sustained applause as he walked, seemingly effortlessly, onstage. There was the hush and a signal to principal flutist Denis Bouriakov to begin Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.” The flute solo made the hall pulsate with a full life of its own. When the orchestra came in, led by a harp glissando that was like a leap out of the void, the texture was rich and decadently sensual.

I met with Tilson Thomas the next afternoon. Monday’s storm was raging, and as I entered his hotel room on the beach in Santa Monica, the conductor was sitting very still in an armchair by the window, wearing a heavy plaid shirt and reading. Behind him, palm trees swayed and violent waves broke on the ocean. Another of his Debussy specialties, “La Mer,” could well have been the soundtrack for the scene.

We then spoke for two hours. Yes, he’s older than when I had last met with him before the pandemic and somewhat slower in his movements. He’s clearly thoughtful, but he’s always been that. The spark in his eyes hasn’t changed. Nor has his humor. If anything, the pandemic and his illness have gotten him more immersed in music than ever, and speaking about one piece led to another and another.