L.A. Chamber Orchestra: Deft Programming, Zesty Playing

Jeffrey Kahane had the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in cracking good season-ending form Friday night at Royce Hall--nothing new there, given this ensemble’s fine track record over the last quarter-century, but nice to report anyway. And with last-minute switches in the order of the program and placement of intermission, he ended up with two uncannily matched pairs of pieces.

The first half included a shortened version of Bruce Broughton’s Concerto for Piccolo and Orchestra, whose final movement has a driving Russian-esque rhythm that recalls Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1. It then gave way to Shostakovich’s sendup of Russian concertos, the Piano Concerto No. 1. The second half coupled Haydn’s Piano Concerto in D with the 17-year-old Bizet’s miraculous Symphony No. 1 in C, which itself is a comment upon the classical style that Haydn worked within.

The orchestra’s Susan Greenberg--for whom the Broughton concerto was written in 1992--knocked off the work’s placid and playful piccolo solos with equal authority. While Kahane’s orchestra played Shostakovich with infectious zest and tonal sheen, topped by David Washburn’s poised solo trumpet, pianist Garrick Ohlsson didn’t catch fire until after the perfectly timed, raucously thumped pratfall chord in the Finale--and his Haydn was veiled and subtly shaded. Admittedly, Ohlsson was working within the limitations of a lackluster Yamaha piano, whose pallid tone often seemed recessed into the orchestra.

Finally, Kahane steered his virtuoso orchestra through a distinguished, carefully terraced, mostly quickly paced (except for a surprisingly deliberate Scherzo) account of Bizet to end the evening.