MUSIC REVIEW : Pianist Shapiro Saves Otherwise Disappointing Camerata Outing

The Mozart Camerata mustered plenty of boldly accented, energetic playing at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church on Saturday night. Yet much of the program floundered in disappointing bluster.

Music director Ami Porat led a technically adept group, essentially the same one from which he has in the past been able to draw insightful readings. On this occasion, however--with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 as the primary vehicle--purposes remained unclear, inner content unfathomed.

Periodic flashes did illuminate the haze--poignant moments in the Larghetto, reliably stylish woodwind solos in the middle movements. But the second movement longed for pathos, the Scherzo for thrust. Instead, lack of discernible direction reduced the Scherzo to a ponderous exercise. In the final movement, without a sense of inevitability, sudden dynamic contrasts fell flat, as if unrelated to preceding phrases.

The Camerata’s opening work, the Overture to “Tancredi” by Rossini, suffered from similar disjointedness and, despite a scrappy Allegro, never took flight.

Only when lured by Daniel Shapiro’s masterful interpretation of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C minor did the orchestra rise above polished pedestrianism. The 29-year-old Southern California native brought intelligence, dramatic flair and gratifying familiarity with Mozartean style to bear.

He also brought courage in his willingness to depart from the printed score. While ornamentation and interpolation may be true to 18th-Century practices in general, it can be risky when applied to compositions by Mozart, whose embellishments often are so precise that they defy tampering.

Shapiro deftly avoided possible pitfalls. In asserting his improvisatorial rights, the pianist proved ever-attentive to the inherent starkness of this dark piece, confining himself to brief connecting passages and occasional cadential ornaments, but leaving untouched the literal repeats so essential to the nature of this work.

He also provided his own cadenzas--a brief, fussy aside for the closing movement, an absorbing, varied and well-crafted interlude for the opening Allegro con brio.