Mozart Orchestra Shows Devotion to Namesake

Nicely balancing the known with the seldom heard, the Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra and Lucinda Carver offered a program devoted to its namesake composer for a large and appreciative audience at the Wilshire-Ebell Theatre Saturday night.

Conductor Carver also appeared as soloist in the Piano Concerto in A, K. 488. Leading from the keyboard, back to the audience, Carver presided over an insightful and rapt interpretation, one that took full account of the vocal quality of this music and full advantage of its chamber music possibilities. Unfailingly intimate as soloist, Carver used a soft legato tellingly, backing off to whispering levels for nuance. Conversing with her musicians, she found places to accompany them, to trade ideas. This was friendly music-making indeed.

For a finale, Carver and the orchestra took on the relatively neglected Symphony No. 34, a product of Mozart’s last year in Salzburg and not altogether in what we consider his typical style. The music does not so consistently evoke the human voice, but is more purely instrumental, less personal in outline. The players seemed to take this into consideration too, in a honed, crisp and firmly propulsive reading.

A couple of obvious glitches notwithstanding, the performance of the “Magic Flute” Overture that opened the concert proved lively and euphonious. As complete novelties, Carver exhumed the Contradances, K. 587, 607 and 610. Trifles, surely, but full of creative touches almost smuggled in. As Mozart once said, “I am really unable to scribble off inferior stuff.” This wasn’t cocky; just the plain truth.