MUSIC AND DANCE REVIEWS : PERICK LEADS L.A. CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Returning to Southern California for the first time since his visit here in 1985 to conduct “Le Nozze di Figaro,” Christof Perick led the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in a bracing program of Schubert, Wagner and (more) Mozart at the Beverly Theatre on Thursday night.

He again showed himself an experienced, exigent and expressive Mozartean.

With pianist Jeffrey Kahane as his soloist, the 40-year-old German conductor probed deeply the inner workings of the C-minor Piano Concerto (K. 491). At the same time, he maintained momentum, polished surfaces and complete transparency of instrumental textures. As it had in that “Nozze di Figaro” by the visiting Deutsche Oper of West Berlin, the orchestra played handsomely for him.

Kahane set a noble tone in a performance of the solo part that balanced poignancy with austerity; he produced single phrases of striking articulation, yet never broke the composer’s longer line.

In rippling passagework that never became mechanical, in myriad differentiations of pianistic touch, he illuminated the complexities of Mozart’s thought and facets of his lyricism. Among many other revelations he brought to the score, Kahane also contributed a perfectly appropriate and organically conceived cadenza to the first movement.

Perick surrounded the concerto with complementary works of contrasting aspect. His reading of Schubert’s often-neglected Symphony No. 2, executed by the chamber orchestra with buoyant good spirits and brilliant soloism, let the early work make all its points without conductorial interference.

Though sometimes slow-moving, Perick’s account of Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll” never dawdled, but allowed savoring of the inner voices and highlighting of the solo lines. In the somewhat dry acoustic of the Beverly Theatre, this never became a lush performance. But it did sing.

Incidentally, the LACO concerts this week--the program is repeated at Ambassador Auditorium tonight and in El Cajon, Sunday--feature what are first local hearings of a new piano, the Falcone, an instrument produced in Boston by the young Santi Falcone. From the incomplete though convincing evidence of Kahane’s performance Thursday, one can tell that the Falcone is a piano to watch. . . .