MUSIC REVIEW : Stuttgart Orchestra Makes a Rare L.A. Visit

Known more widely for its warmth of tone and easy musicality rather than for spit-polish ensemble and authenticity of style, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra has inexplicably played in Los Angeles only two times previously during its four-decade, nine-visit history of touring this country.

In Royce Hall, Saturday night, the Wurttembergers returned to us after an 11-year hiatus and charmed a smallish but vociferously partisan audience.

Once again, the playing reached no plateaus of mechanical perfection, but maintained an acceptable international standard in sound and achievement. The playing of the nine violinists sometimes lacks unanimity of attack and vibrato; an undistinguished, three-person cello section at moments produces what seems a less-than-full tone.

Nevertheless, as led with extroverted gestures by its new conductor, Patrick Strub--founder Karl Munchinger retired last year--the 17-player string orchestra gave nicely delineated and spirited performances of music by Geminiani, Mozart, Janacek and Tchaikovsky.

Most pleasing was Geminiani’s G-minor Concerto Grosso, Opus 3, No. 2, wherein the group accomplished transparent textures and a linear flow particularly felicitous under the probing but by no means unflattering acoustic of Royce Hall. The orchestra’s playing of Tchaikovsky’s familiar and beloved Serenade, Opus 48--though hampered by Strub’s overemphatic conducting and his failure to bring out inner voices--also achieved its wonted effects.

At mid-program, the agenda became more pedestrian, offering two minor works by major composers, Mozart’s Divertimento in B-flat, K. 137, and Janacek’s early Suite for Strings (1877). Though very competently performed, neither work lifted the listener out of his seat nor actually justified its inclusion on this program. In other hands, that may be possible.

The Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra plays at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Tuesday night.