MUSIC REVIEWS : ESSWOOD SINGS WITH CHAMBER GROUP

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra has always seemed to regard Baroque pieces the way some people do potato chips--one or two is never enough. After 16 movements, midway through the ensemble’s concert Wednesday at Ambassador Auditorium, there was a temptation to call it a night.

Twelve movements later, however, one was alert, excited and satisfied all at the same time. Not ready for more, of course, but refreshed and uplifted.

Why? Credit countertenor Paul Esswood and Vivaldi with a revelation. The composer gave his “Stabat Mater” an unusual, but unified and readily comprehendable, formal scheme. He was at his expressive, melodic best in it, and worked sophisticated wonders with a small accompanying force of strings and continuo.

Esswood, for his part, attended to emotional and musical nuances with skill and conviction. The countertenor, or male alto, voice is the product of carefully trained and developed falsetto singing.

Familiar from many recordings, Esswood’s voice has the clarity expected of countertenors, plus a rare degree of power. Properly warmed up, it is agile and remarkably even in timbre.

Most importantly, Esswood knows what to do with it. He gave Vivaldi’s music poignant lilt, bleak despair and anguished fire.

The program, presumably devised by guest conductor Kenneth Jean, finished with C.P.E. Bach’s Symphony in B minor. In the transition from a disjunct, emotional opening movement, through a meditative Larghetto, to a fiery, imitative finale, it made a perfect companion piece to the Vivaldi.

Born in New York, raised in Hong Kong, trained at Juilliard and currently associated with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Jean had nothing in his program biography to suggest any special expertise in Baroque music. What he produced proved fairly standardized as to period style.

But he did elicit crisp, clean playing from an orchestra reduced to half its strings, plus the capable harpsichord continuo of Patricia Mabee. A brisk, dapper figure, Jean skips on and off stage, and bounces and bobs on the podium. He favors quick tempos and clear textures, and received superbly homogenized ensemble from his players.

The wearying aspect of the first half was not the multiplicity of movements itself, but the concentration of attending to so many unrelated things in close succession. Purcell’s jaunty incidental music to “The Gordian Knot Untied” passed pleasantly enough, and the 11th Concerto Grosso of Handel’s Opus 6 was distinguished by concertmaster Paul Shure’s pristine solos.

In J. S. Bach’s Cantata No. 54, “Widerstehe doch der Suende,” Esswood sounded pale. Ending with an austere Lamento by the older Johann Christoph Bach was a solid stroke against the law of diminishing returns, and Esswood sang subtly. But Jean and seven players made the accompaniment sound stiff.