MUSIC REVIEW : An Ideal Evening With the English Chamber Orchestra

Pinchas Zukerman led the English Chamber Orchestra in the kind of music-making that educates the ear and helps set standards in a Philharmonic Society-sponsored concert Friday at the Performing Arts Center.

From the initial vibrant yet razor-sharp attacks in Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for strings to the closing crystalline clarity and drive of Haydn’s Symphony No. 85, the playing of the orchestra was virtually ideal in terms of balance, shading, transparency, propulsion and nuanced style.

In two symphonies by Haydn--No. 6 (“Le Matin”) and No. 85 (“La Reine”)--the orchestra revealed ravishing string tone at all dynamic levels, feathery light accents, vigor without heaviness or crudeness, and strength without clumsiness or exaggeration.

Consider, too, the undemonstrative, but virtuosic playing of the soloists, including flutist Kate Hill’s perfect control, civility and evenness; concertmaster Jose-Luis Garcia’s tender expressivity, and cellist Charles Tunnell’s fluent continuo.

But one feels obligated to list other players, too, including oboists Gordon Hunt and Melinda Maxwell, bassoonists Ian Cuthill and Michael Boyle, and hornists Frank Lloyd and Elizabeth Randell, for so transparent were the textures that each player’s contribution instantly, intelligently mattered.

Certainly there are other valid approaches to these scores than those taken by Zukerman, but these had the merit of emphasizing almost all the virtues that make the no-place-to-hide music of the Classical period fundamental to the repertory.

In addition to his conducting duties, Zukerman served as violin soloist in Bach’s Concerto No. 2 and Mozart’s Adagio, K. 261, and Rondo, K. 373, alternative movements Mozart composed for one of his own violin concertos and one by another composer.

Zukerman’s approach to Bach and Mozart may not be the most currently fashionable. His playing was broad and continuous in phrasing, leisurely in tempo and weighted more toward smooth and graceful textures than toward dramatic contrasts.

But most of this didn’t matter when you realized that the playing of this decidedly non-flashy, unaffected soloist had simply moved you to the core.