MUSIC REVIEW : Moscow Virtuosi, Spivakov Return to Arts Center

The Moscow Virtuosi gave its first Southern California performance two years ago on the night of the stock market crash.

No such excitement colored the first concert of the Soviet troupe’s return visit Tuesday night, back in Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center--and again sponsored by the Orange County Philharmonic Society.

(The ensemble was scheduled to move on to Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena on Wednesday night.)

But there were thrills enough, as violinist-conductor Vladimir Spivakov led his chamber orchestra--including oboes and horns and now numbering 26 players--on a jolly romp through standard works by Bach, Stravinsky and Haydn and one novelty, Penderecki’s Capriccio for oboe and 11 strings (1965).

As before, the all-male orchestra demonstrated polished technical accomplishment and high spirits, a modicum of interest in matters of style--its use of harpsichord turned out to be arbitrary and sometimes inaudible, for instance--and a palpable wish to please. Such a wish seemed to be expressed in three audience-courting encores after the program proper: the Waltz from Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings; Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances, and the Polka from Shostakovich’s ballet, “L’Age d’Or.”

But top-drawer--a word one learned, lest we forget, from Virgil Thomson--performances characterized this entire event. At the beginning, when Spivakov and first violinist Arkady Futer became soloists in Bach’s familiar D-minor Concerto for two violins, there may not have been a lot of Baroque definition, and not even very much transparency in the string playing, but the solidity, directness and scrubbed nature of the reading still left little to be desired.

And Stravinsky’s Concerto in D for strings elicited the best kind of Russian-style pungency with lushness, in an immaculate account marked by a tight blend of urgency and relaxation. Spivakov may look like a fussy conductor--he often seems to be making twice as many gestures as he needs--but the sound-results usually contradict that impression.

In the brief Penderecki piece, in which Alexei Utkin was the resourceful and witty soloist--it is an amusing little essay full of emotional twists as well as insect imitations--Spivakov & Co. seemed to find all the nuances of color and contrast the composer may have envisioned.

Best came last, in a full-throated but style-conscious performance of Haydn’s ever-wondrous “Farewell” Symphony, a work of many facets and moods, as well as changing textures. With 30% less string vibrato and 25% more instrumental transparency, it would probably have approached perfection.