MUSIC REVIEW : Some Mozart for the Masses at Irvine Meadows : The Pacific Symphony and soloists perform with subtlety and crispness. But the crowd is thrilled most by a flashy intruder.

It is always enlightening to see what gets the biggest crowd response at well-populated, outdoor summer concerts. It keeps one’s thumb on the pulse of the masses.

Saturday night’s Mozart program at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, with Carl St. Clair and the Pacific Symphony doing the honors, brought out an official tabulation of 7,577 Mozart-craving souls.

Which Mozart masterpiece knocked ‘em dead? Was it the Overture to “Le Nozze di Figaro”? No. Was it the Concerto for Two Pianos, K. 365, or the Symphony No. 40 in G minor? Again, no.

As it turned out, the healthiest cheer of the evening was reserved for a flashy and fairly trashy fantasy for two pianos, the “Reminiscences de ‘Don Juan’ “--by none other than Franz Liszt. So much for Mozartean subtlety.

Before this encore, pianists Kenneth Broadway and Ralph Markham had offered a lucid and gracious account of the Concerto for Two Pianos. Sensitive amplification (for a change) projected their sounds evenly and warmly. The pianists matched nuance for nuance and produced duo-rubato effortlessly.

It was a quiet performance, with none of its drama, none of its virtuosity, overstated. Melodic lines were projected with shapeliness and feeling, but always within strictly refined limits, and despite a couple of stumbles from Markham, a polished account. St. Clair and orchestra accompanied faithfully and mostly neatly.

After intermission, St. Clair turned to the Symphony No. 40. This clearly was a carefully thought-out, well-rehearsed reading. One might quibble with little things--the slowish tempo in the first movement, for instance, or the often lackluster efforts from the woodwinds--but generally the performance unwound with fluid detail, warmth of phrase and a poised sense of drama. The Andante found St. Clair and orchestra at their penetrating best.

To open the concert, St. Clair led a swift, crisp, tidy and bubbly run-through of the “Nozze di Figaro” Overture. Now if only he had played Liszt’s “Battle of the Huns” . . .