Chamber Orchestra Offers a Rewarding Evening of Handel

Local audiences have sampled parts of Handel’s Opus 3 Concerti Grossi over the decade. But it takes a performance of all six concertos that make up the set to savor the invention, range and appeal of the music.

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, led by violinist Iona Brown, provided that opportunity Thursday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. And rewarding it was.

Handel hadn’t thought of the set as a unit from the beginning. His English publisher, John Walsh, dreamed it up as a marketing device to compete with collections of concertos by Vivaldi and other Italians. Handel assembled some earlier music and wrote some new.

The results show him in a variety of moods, from hearty public man (in various incarnations) to withdrawn dreamer, but always unpredictable in scoring and development of ideas.

Brown led an energetic and tight performance, erring sometimes with brisk tempos that left little time to explore give and take between various players. In the past, she has over-interpreted her solos in Baroque concertos, but here she played with virtuosity and fluency and without exaggeration.

Oboist Allan Vogel played with taste and feeling throughout the evening, as did his colleagues. Notable contributions included flutist David Shostac in the third concerto, bassoonist Kenneth Munday providing the shift from levity to austerity in the fourth and cellist David Speltz leading the lower strings in the fifth.

Harpsichordist Patricia Mabee swapped roles with organist Barbara Poper for the prominent keyboard part in the sixth, which Handel recycled in a later organ concerto.

The program was sponsored by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County. The orchestra played the “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” as the single encore.

* Iona Brown and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will repeat the program Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at the Alex Theater, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. $10-$48. (213) 622-7001.