Music, Dance Reviews : Stulberg Leads L.A. Chamber Orchestra

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is developing a definable Haydn style and sound, irrespective of its conductors: rhythmically taut, immaculately balanced, sharp-edged, without undue string vibrato, shot through with piercing oboes and prominent horns--the latter are not there simply to fill out harmonies--and a firm, agile bass line that sets the violins free to soar.

It’s a sound we first heard with Christof Perick at the helm in November, then under Placido Domingo, Iona Brown and, on Friday at Royce Hall, with conductor Neal Stulberg.

That said, there have been individual differences, with Friday’s reading of the familiar Symphony No. 96 in D, the “Miracle,” more rhythmically rigid and certainly larger in sound than the season’s prior offerings.

Stulberg likes volume, and in this festive trumpets-and-drums work it isn’t out of place. Still, the best moments were in the Minuet, with oboist Allan Vogel leading the rustic festivities with bright-toned, dancing aplomb.

Another LACO principal, Gary Gray, subsequently took center stage to sing, keen and blast his way brilliantly through the impressionistic-cum-jazzy measures of Copland’s Clarinet Concerto.

If other soloists have dwelt more on the tender mysteries of the opening movement, few within memory have shaped it with more dramatic boldness or greater variety of tone. The LACO strings provided polished support under Stulberg’s attentive direction.

The program also offered Ravel’s “Pavane pour une infante defunte,” somnolently paced by Stulberg, and Alberto Ginastera’s thin and unengaging 1953 “Variaciones concertantes,” which nonetheless gave ample opportunity for a dozen orchestra principals to strut their considerable stuff.