Orpheus ensemble and Fleisher: feeling noble

Concluding a brief, two-stop California tour, the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra performed Monday night in the Irvine Barclay Theatre to a full house of ostensible connoisseurs -- “ostensible” because this audience never coughed, sneezed, rattled paper or misbehaved throughout the program.

Such rapt attention is also characteristic of this 32-member ensemble’s complete immersion in whatever music it plays. This time the focus was on Bach’s C-major Suite, a new work by Joan Tower and Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, with Leon Fleisher at the keyboard.

Fleisher’s appearance was the climax of the event, naturally. The great American pianist, now 77, has retained his mastery, his focus and his visionary virtuosity over the six decades of a sometimes troubled career. Monday, he was in top form and gave a magisterial reading, assisted nobly by the orchestra, of this touchstone of the repertory.

Except: He was hampered by an old and weak-voiced instrument, a restored 1905 Steinway that could not produce the sound, the volume and the flexibility that would have made a truly compelling experience possible. But Fleisher pressed on, the Orpheus gave its all, and the performance was memorable nonetheless.

Heard here in the second of its West Coast premiere performances, Tower’s “Chamber Dance” uses the full resources of the orchestra and several of its soloists in an engaging, highly dramatic narrative -- it really begs for a program -- approaching Tchaikovskyan intensity. It is like a planned train wreck, and similarly holds the observer. Without a conductor, the ensemble neatly led itself through this emotional maze.

The Orpheus’ often-admired virtues -- clarity, near-perfect intonation, self-governing balances -- were on display lavishly in the Bach Orchestral Suite, which accomplished the twin ideals of danciness and songfulness effortlessly. This was Bach pristine and affectionate. Imagine: a world without batons.