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Spinning webs, skipping applause, grafting centuries  The most
magical few seconds of Thursday night's BSO concert in Symphony
Hall were the ones in which applause was jettisoned in favor of
absolute silence. It was not some gesture of audience protest
but rather a decision by guest conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi
to seamlessly link the first two works on the program -- György
Ligeti's "Atmosphères" and the Prelude to Act I of Wagner's
"Lohengrin" -- with only the briefest of pauses between them, as
if they were not masterpieces separated by more than a century
but simply distinct movements in one vast cosmic symphony.  Of
course, the silent bridge worked as well as it did because these
two pieces make an inspired pairing. Written in 1961,
"Atmosphères" was one of Ligeti's early pathbreaking works,
later inscribed in popular consciousness thanks to Stanley
Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey." The piece begins with
enormous yet quiet chords, the sound