MUSIC REVIEWS : INSTITUTE ORCHESTRA --INDOORS AT UCLA

Some types of music-making--marching bands and most rock indulgences come to mind--are acceptable, even preferable, outdoors. But the symphonic muse, despite the blandishments of Hollywood Bowl, works most fruitfully inside.

As evidence, consider the amazing transformation of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute Orchestra. Only in enthusiasm did the slick, powerful group filling the Royce Hall stage Sunday evening resemble the exceedingly scrappy band heard a week ago at Hollywood Bowl.

The tonic effect of supportive acoustics was immediately apparent, in a big, bold, dramatic account of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflote” Overture. Clyde Mitchell led the full group--no period niceties here--in a well-disciplined, barricade-storming performance.

Institute co-director Lukas Foss brought uninhibited disco fever to the conducting of the Second Suite from Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloe” Ballet. His podium prancing, however, elicited remarkably warm, rich playing, with an immense capacity for rafter-ringing climaxes which Foss was not shy about tapping. What a revelation for ears becoming acclimatized to the Bowl version of symphonic sound!

Arnold Steinhardt, first violinist of the Guarneri Quartet and an Institute faculty member this summer, was the soloist in Mozart’s Concerto in A, K.219. He brought brilliant, slender tone and pristine technique to the task, and proved unflappably patrician even with a brief memory lapse in one of the Joachim cadenzas.

Peter Ioannou, a product of Cal State Northridge, had charge of the scaled-down ensemble. He introduced the relative novelty of col legno bow slaps in the “Turkish” portion of the finale, in an otherwise cautious, slightly tentative reading.

The institute’s third conducting fellow, Juilliard student Peter Rubardt, directed the orchestra, sans strings, in Stravinsky’s “Symphonies of Wind Instruments.” His deft ministrations produced a bright, crisp performance, slightly jazzy and occasionally strident.