LACO Dazzles With Transcriptions

The somewhat faded art of transcription, now largely devoted to crossover projects, received new luster this weekend. Violinist and conductor Dmitry Sitkovetsky led the strings of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, in Westwood and Glendale venues, in a program of transcriptions capped by his own tour de force adaptation of Bach’s “Goldberg” variations.

Sitkovetsky has examined the musical machinery of Bach’s keyboard monument closely, taken it apart and reassembled it with extraordinary flair and imagination as a sort of mega “Brandenburg” concerto. That does not begin to describe the amazing textural variety of the results, which he has recorded on Nonesuch with the New European Strings.

The performance Friday at UCLA’s Royce Hall was breathtaking in its vitality and virtuosity. Sitkovetsky led it from the concertmaster’s chair, playing some of the variations as accompanied solos. In others he played with the supremely accomplished and articulate LACO principals--violinist Margaret Batjer, violist Roland Kato and cellist Armen Ksajikian--in duo, trio and quartet configurations, some with the gentle harpsichord support of Patricia Mabee.

The outgoing variations with the full string band were blazing marvels of dynamic interplay. Sitkovetsky capitalized on the traditional antiphonal seating of the violins for some striking exchanges across the stage, and the whole contrasting sequence of the 30 variations flowed with an organic, un-pedantic logic.

Created over half a century ago, Respighi’s third suite of “Ancient Airs and Dances” has a kind of self-consciously decayed opulence, a palpable sense of looking back rather than forward as Sitkovetsky does. The concluding passacaglia, however, with its mini-cadenzas for the principals, anticipates some of Sitkovetsky’s textures. Working here with a baton, Sitkovetsky oversaw a warm, radiant reading of the work, rhythmically supple and balanced for all its soft, sonic edge.

In the conventional solo spot on the program was Kreisler’s concerto arrangement of Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill” sonata. Sitkovetsky played it with fluid vigor and pertinent sentiment.