Music : Mozart Orchestra at Ebell

Since we are entering the much-ballyhooed Mozart bicentennial year, it might come as a shock that the Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra didn’t play a note of Mozart at its season-opening concert at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre on Saturday night.

Terminal addicts shouldn’t feel deprived, though, for Mozart has a total lock on the orchestra’s remaining concerts.

In the meantime, outgoing music director David Keith--who retires at the end of this season--put together a short, mostly agreeable line-up of works by some of Mozart’s contemporaries.

Keith and company opened matters by knocking out a generally shipshape reading of Boccherini’s lively Overture in D, Opus 43.

Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto, though, was one of those staid, uninvolving performances that make one stare at the clock on the Ebell’s east wall. Pianist Betty Oberacker could only muster a mild-mannered if reasonably clear attack, not helped by the boxy sound of the piano in this hall. The orchestra’s work deteriorated steadily, capped by a Finale totally lacking in sparkle.

Yet Haydn’s Symphony No. 53 (“L’Imperiale”) at the close found the group regaining its form, displaying impressive unity at Keith’s brisk tempos though with an occasional frayed edge in the violins. Faced with a choice of four possible fourth movements for the Haydn, Keith opted for the earliest version--one that gives the strings a difficult workout--and the orchestra stayed right with the quick pace.