MUSIC REVIEW : Generous, Effective Program by Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra

The most telling facet of the current playing of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra may be its rhythmic security. Solidly anchored in ensemble, the group generates terrific snap in motor movements and dances, yet has enough elasticity for expressive phrasing.

Tuesday that was one of the distinguishing elements in a generous, effective program at Royce Hall, where the orchestra opened the concert season for the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts under harpsichordist-conductor Ton Koopman.

The 17-member group brought a full complement of musical and stylistic virtues to its 18th-Century tasks, including its own fluent soloists. Tuesday, Koopman featured oboists Marcel Ponseele and Lars Henriksson, as characterful as any period reeds and a good deal more certain about intonation than most.

Their lithe, virtuosic efforts enlivened the big suites that formed the program pillars. Bach’s Suite in C, BWV 1066, and a Suite in G from Rameau’s opera-ballet “Les Indes Galantes” contain touchstone masterpieces of the High Baroque, and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra presented them with focused energy, pertinent graces and textural clarity, always alert to the implications of the music’s dance roots.

Telemann’s B-flat Overture from “Tafelmusik III,” however, is not one of the composer’s more consistently interesting works, and Koopman and company burdened it with a large measure of ornamental obfuscation.

Between the dance sets Koopman gave the Amsterdam strings uncontested attention with Handel’s Concerto Grosso in A minor, No. 4 from Opus 6, and Mozart’s Divertimento in D, K. 136. Koopman’s tempos pushed the ensemble envelope at times, particularly in the Mozart, but the playing never seemed desperate, remaining lively in sound and spirit.

Koopman led everything from the harpsichord, informing slower and/or quieter movements with pertinent continuo elaborations. In extroverted passages, however, he pounded clatteringly. Koopman showed what could be done artistically in percussive mode in the “Dances du Grand Calumets de la Paix” from the Rameau, but elsewhere he--and the poor instrument--would have been better off just rapping on the case.

In encore, Koopman and the Amsterdamers delivered a vigorous, sparkling account of “The Entrance of the Queen of Sheba” from Handel’s oratorio “Solomon.”