Music Review : Mozart Orchestra Triumphs Over Elements at the Ford

A sort of triumph of the inexact science of outdoor acoustics and the absence of mechanical flying things that can bedevil music-making in Cahuenga Pass conspired with Lucinda Carver and her Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra on Saturday to create an inviting setting for Handel, Mozart and Haydn in a packed John Anson Ford Amphitheatre.

The 20-some LAMO players were clearly heard, without the diffuseness and/or lack of projection common to those who in the past dared the Ford acoustics, amplified or au naturel . Responsibility must lie with the shell that replaces those wobbling plastic thingies that used to be suspended over the stage.

The harpsichord, from which Carver directed during the Sinfonia from Handel’s “Saul,” remains problematic at the Ford, its sound emerging tinnily and too loudly--from this listener’s aural perspective, seven rows back, center--not from the instrument itself but from a loudspeaker to the left of the stage.

Still, “Saul” went dashingly and even elegantly, with Edward Murray, a valuable component of the local early-music scene, making the most of his flashy organ solo.

Mozart’s delectable Divertimento in D, K. 205, came off less well, as has to be the case when what was intended as chamber music is assigned to a larger ensemble: It sounds, paradoxically, thinner, with the quicksilver violin phrases losing their focus in the hands of a section rather than an individual.

Which is not to say that music of such worth failed to charm. One had to admire Carver’s refusal to be intimidated into interpretive oversimplification: in the exquisite slow movement, she went for it, demanding optimum dynamic contrast, and at a daringly slow tempo. Her players proved highly responsive, and Mozart emerged victorious.