Music Reviews : Heiichiro Ohyama Leads Japanese Philharmonic

Peter Shaffer, the author of “Amadeus,” was right about one thing: Given inexpert handling, the music of Mozart indeed seems to contain “too many notes.” Salzburg’s most famous son wrote sublime works that not only do not play themselves--they require careful, loving, stylish and detailed execution to sound their best.

Beginning his first full season as music director of the three-decade-old Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra of Los Angeles, Heiichiro Ohyama on Saturday night brought such virtues to the most difficult kind of Mozart program, one made up of familiar masterpieces.

In the exposing but friendly atmosphere at the Japan America Theatre in Little Tokyo, Ohyama dared this agenda: the “Nozze di Figaro” Overture, the A-major Piano Concerto, K. 488, and the “Jupiter” Symphony. The good news is that, with an ensemble reduced to 37 resourceful players, the conductor produced performances of freshness, clarity and vigor. There is no bad news--unless it be that not every single seat in the auditorium was occupied.

This Mozart year has brought out brilliant and stoic readings of the 41st Symphony; this one could not be described with those words, yet it satisfied thoroughly in its grace and humanity, its sense of direction and the contrasts Ohyama stressed. In the slow movement in particular, he brought out inner voices, acknowledged all emotional subtexts fluently, while maintaining the exterior values. The orchestra played splendidly, if not always immaculately.

The same thoroughness marked the 44-year-old conductor’s leadership in the A-major Piano Concerto in which Katsurako Mikami was the solid, probing and expansive soloist.