L.A. Chamber Orchestra Has a Night of Hits, Misses

Despite financial woes, lack of permanent musical leadership and no hall to call home, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra continues to be an impressive entity, as evidenced by its season-ending concert Saturday at the Alex Theatre in Glendale.

A major reason for its cohesiveness is the prodigious woodwind contingent--led by flutist David Shostac, oboist Allan Vogel and bassoonist Kenneth Munday--that has served the orchestra for at least the past decade.

For all that, Saturday’s concert, conducted by Jeffrey Kahane, was a patchy affair.

Most problematic was Mozart’s Piano Concerto in G, K. 453, with Kahane the elegant soloist and directing from the keyboard.

Mozart’s masterfully engineered opposition of crisp articulation and the lyric line, particularly in the piano-wind conversations of the sublime slow movement, was obscured by an amiable, soft-core approach, with Kahane’s undulant, theatrical solo (extreme dynamics, lots of rubatos) redolent of later eras: Schubert’s and Chopin’s.

Respighi’s “Trittico Botticelliano,” however, in which gobs of aural flesh are applied to the slender bodies of the Botticelli maidens depicted, emerged as the intended virtuoso-orchestra showpiece, with conductor Kahane in his Romantic element.

Then again, the ensuing “Pulcinella” suite of Stravinsky was punchless--until the “Tarantella,” where Kahane ratcheted up the energy level by several notches and the marvelous score took wing to its rowdy conclusion.

Woodwinds were again outstanding, joined now by the resplendent brass trio of hornist Richard Todd, trumpeter David Washburn and trombonist Michael Hoffman.

The evening began with “First Light,” a colorful, expendable, Stravinsky-obsessed (think “Symphony in Three Movements”) 1988 score by Richard Danielpour.