MUSIC REVIEW : OC Chamber Orchestra Offers Mozart, Vivaldi

Conductor Micah Levy and the Orange County Chamber Orchestra offered mixed results in the last program of their fifth season. Ensemble values were strong, but interpretations unimaginative and uninvolving, Sunday afternoon at Loyola Marymount University in Orange. (The program was to be repeated Monday at South Coast Repertory Theatre.)

The problems mattered less in some works than in others.

Levy’s account of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 was brisk, efficient and clean. Except for occasional pitch problems, the orchestra played with cohesion, energy, transparency and balance.

But Levy, who took virtually every repeat, conducted without shaping phrases, without revealing aim, design or architecture, without conveying insight, emotions or drama. This was Mozart as mere formal, academic exercise.

Similar kinds of problems typified “Winter” from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” Soloist Diana Halprin, who also is the orchestra’s concertmaster, was technically secure and fluent, but inclined toward an etude- style of playing. Levy, too, favored a pure note-value approach and did not attempt any scene painting.

What resulted were severe studies in dynamics or in rhythmic evenness. Even the haunting arioso in the slow movement or the anticipation of the return of Spring in the last failed to charm.

Halprin’s emotional reticence, her technical strength, her clean, unindulgent lyricism worked to better advantage in Vaughan Williams’ abstract “The Lark Ascending.” Levy provided substantial support, from airy delicacy and suspended rhythms to emphatic folk atmosphere. The orchestra responded securely.

The concert opened with a springy account of the “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” from Handel’s “Solomon” and a workmanlike struggle with the rhythmic challenges in Shostakovich’s spectral Scherzo, Opus 11.