Music Reviews : Mendelssohn’s ‘Reformation’ Shines in Malibu

At first glance, Mendelssohn’s “Reformation” Symphony would seem an odd choice as the featured work for the only full-orchestra concert in this year’s Malibu Strawberry Creek Music Festival. This youthful piece certainly has its charms, but its flaws are apparent and even the most staunch Mendelssohnite must admit that it doesn’t belong in the composer’s top drawer.

But festival music director Yehuda Gilad obviously has an affinity for the work, an affinity made very clear as he led the Festival Orchestra in a meticulously sculpted and inspired performance Saturday night in Smothers Theatre at Pepperdine University.

This was the kind of music making that convinces, that takes a work’s strengths--in this case the devotional aspects of the score--and plays them to the hilt. It was a performance of forceful feeling yet effortless detail, of generous, warm phrasing yet no cloying overstatement. Its polish, pacing and, especially, its expert blend of woodwind and perfectly balanced brass showed the work in all of its noble coloring and intense purpose.

In the center of the program, Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A, K. 488, seemed particularly suited to the talents of Valerie Capers, a blind pianist whose credits lie mostly in the jazz arena. That jazz background came clearly through to at least one listener, not in any sort of swinging inflection (for her performance was stylistically appropriate), but in the smooth regularity of the underlying pulse and casual grace of line.

Caper’s musical personality is a quiet one. She did not press the work’s brilliant or virtuosic aspects and opted instead for gentleness and intimacy, and, although this was not a note-perfect reading, it was a communicative and engaging one from start to finish. Gilad and orchestra provided friendly accompaniment.

A bright and charming account of Bizet’s “Jeux d’Enfants” served well in starting things off.