L.A. Chamber’s Buoyant Mantle

Conductor Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra spread a mantle of optimism and confidence over a happy audience Saturday at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. The program of Haydn, Bach--J.C. and J.S.--and Scarlatti as arranged by Avison was judiciously chosen and buoyantly played.

Kahane is a colorist in this repertory, sensitive to nuances. By placing the bassoon behind the cellos in Haydn’s early Symphony No. 8 (“Le Soir”), for instance, he reinforced the bass line and beautifully blended two closely related timbres. He did something similar in Johann Christian Bach’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat, Opus 18, No. 1, by putting flutes near violas. This work must have fascinated Mozart, who seems to have used it as a blueprint for his “Haffner” Symphony.

Similarly, Domenico Scarlatti’s endlessly inventive keyboard sonatas provided a blueprint for 18th-century composer Charles Avison, who arranged a number of them for string orchestra. The Concerto Grosso in A minor, which opened the program, is a charming example.

It was an evening highlighting solo contributions--concertmaster Rachel Purkin, cellist Rowena Hammill and bassist Susan Ranney, among others. But the prime focus was on Allan Vogel in Bach’s Concerto for Oboe d’Amore in A, BWV 1055, an oboist’s challenge equivalent, perhaps, to the second act of “Tristan.”

Vogel certainly lived up to the demands of this ravishing work, spinning out the endlessly varying and mesmerizing first movement theme and the almost never-ending melody in the second. When he wasn’t playing, Vogel listened and smiled as if he were in Bach heaven. We knew exactly what he meant.