CHAMBER ORCHESTRA : LITTON AND UCHIDA AT PASADENA

Programming is an art of finesse and practicality, and it can decide the success or failure of any particular musical venture. Well-intentioned but insensitive program arrangement will sabotage even the strongest performance.

That happened Saturday night, at the first of two concerts by the touring English Chamber Orchestra, led by the young American conductor, Andrew Litton, at Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena.

Haydn’s Symphony No. 104, the E-flat Piano Concerto of Mozart (No. 22) and Robin Holloway’s pleasant if downbeat “Ode” (1980) for winds and strings, is a defensible agenda for an ensemble of the solid resources and accomplishment of the ECO, which is now 26 years old.

But there probably is no workable order for this program which would make it viable. Certainly, the order in which it was presented Saturday--Holloway, Mozart and Haydn--gave the orchestra an uphill climb and dampened any good spirits the audience brought to the event.

Ironically, it was very neatly performed.

Mitsuko Uchida, the Japanese pianist who made an Ambassador debut earlier this year, provided the high point of the evening in an authoritative and beautifully gauged reading of K. 482. Uchida is a pianist of deep reserve, firm technique and personal projection.

Conducting the orchestra intensely from the piano--and wearing a distracting costume which made her look like Jack-in-the- Box in silver lame--she sounded considerably more Mozartean than she looked. But the sound was irresistible.

Litton evidenced solid skills but little individuality in Holloway’s piquantly tonal, ultimately melancholy “Ode” and in Haydn’s “London” Symphony. The orchestra brought spirit and relish and--by the finale--energetic and tight virtuosity to Haydn and accompanied Uchida affectionately.