MUSIC REVIEW : Guitarist Kazuhito Yamashita With Chamber Orchestra

After the festive glories of their season opener, Christof Perick and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra turned to a more intimate mode for their second program. A little Berg and a lot of Vivaldi were the strings-only subject matter Wednesday at Ambassador Auditorium.

The soloist was guitarist Kazuhito Yamashita, a dazzling technician most noted for bravura transcription stunts. On this occasion, he offered three much played and recorded adaptations from Vivaldi.

That this repertory is not his strongest suit--or Perick’s--was quite apparent in the Concerto in C, RV 425. What clipped, driving energy could do was thoroughly accomplished, in a blunt, unembellished reading. Yamashita coped much better with challenges of velocity than of style.

Matters improved in the Concerto in D, RV 93. Since recording it in 1984, Yamashita has developed some ideas about ornamenting the Largo, and has personalized some phrasing in outer movements.

In the Larghetto of the Trio Sonata in A, RV 82, Yamashita relied again on simply changing tone color for repeats. He also tended to push the ensemble, violinist Ralph Morrison, violist Roland Kato, cellist Douglas Davis and harpsichordist Patricia Mabee.

That sonata is often played as a concerto with a larger group, the concertos with just soloists. In any case, there is little enough for a conductor to do, and Perick oversaw crisp, generic performances.

On their own, Perick and the reduced LACO strings gave similarly unadorned accounts of three pieces, tied together not ineffectively as a larger pseudo-symphony. Again the slow movements were left bare and uninflected, a particular disappointment in the Sonata, “Al Santo Sepolcro.”

Concertmaster Ralph Morrison demonstrated what an informed sense of period practice can add, playing the solos of the Concerto in G minor, RV 155, with articulate grace and understated virtuosity.

In the three movements that Berg adapted for string orchestra from his “Lyric Suite,” Perick and the orchestra provided the kind of truly distinctive interpretations missing from most of the Vivaldi. Perick brought acute analysis and dramatic commitment to the score, and his musicians followed with alert ensemble and varied sound.