Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra Still Adjusting to New Home

The Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra is going through a critical period, as it adjusts to the acoustical environment of the Colburn School’s Zipper Hall. In its second orchestral concert in its new home Wednesday night, one could hear the gains and pains of the process.

From a listener’s perspective, it’s mainly a question of balance, making sure everything in conductor Lucinda Carver’s normally clear-cut, dancing conceptions can be heard properly. When playing by themselves, the strings sounded rich and clear, with a well-defined bass, but when the winds, brasses and/or timpani joined in, the textures became cloudy, clotted, giving the impression of too much volume and weight. Perhaps they don’t need to work as hard to project in this small, live-sounding hall as in the ensemble’s old home, the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.

In any case, one could sense most of the qualities of Carver’s Mozart in the Overture to “La Clemenza di Tito”--nicely curved phrases, fizzing, rapid strings, good if soft-edged articulation. The Schubert Symphony No. 2 had energy and movement, but only in the Finale could Carver truly lift the music off the ground, overcoming the weighty textures to produce rollicking, crackling momentum.

Pianist Norman Krieger tended toward a mostly relaxed view of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with Carver and the orchestra providing comfortably tailored, if thick-set support. Sometimes it became a bit bland--and the Rondo could have used more wit--but now and then, Krieger turned a single line passage into a suspenseful episode and grabbed your attention again.