Music : Baroque Group Offers Mozart Works

That the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, under the leadership of violinist-director Gregory Maldonado, remains the Southland’s brightest hope for joining the ranks of important American period-performance ensembles was reaffirmed by their concert on Friday in the resonant, cheerful ambience of First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica.

In utilizing the necessary sizable complement--25 players--for Mozart’s G-minor Symphony, the orchestra courted and indeed succumbed to balance problems infrequently encountered in their generally polished readings of intimate Baroque repertory. But Maldonado’s driving, unfussy, strongly communicative reading--with particular attention paid to the audibility of the bassoons’ critical contribution--and his players’ enthusiastic, if often stretched-to-the-limit response, merited admiration.

The evening’s most polished work came in Mozart’s D-major Flute Concerto, the solo played with stunning agility and warmth by one of the rising stars of the period movement, Stephen Schultz, who also provided the pithy, tasteful cadenzas.

Maldonado’s ensemble offered sensitive, clearly articulated support, buttressing and embellishing, never swamping the gentle-toned solo.

An instrumental suite from Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” opened the proceedings in lively, stylish fashion, if with a more-than-fair share of horn blats, oboe squeaks and scrambling violins.