A Surprise Ending for Mozart Camerata Audience

NEWPORT BEACH —  During this 200th birthday anniversary of Franz Schubert, the wonderful Third Symphony is hardly about to be forgotten. Yet the clean, lithe and fluent performance achieved by the Mozart Camerata orchestra of Orange County, closing the ensemble’s 11th season, still seemed special.

Conducted with both mellowness and urgency by Ami Porat, the Third reiterated all its charms at the orchestra’s performance Sunday in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church.

The serious opening offered authority without solemnity; the first Allegro, a pristine lyricism; the slow movement, great affection combined with transparent textures; the Minuet, optimism and sass--and 10 woodwind players who clearly enjoy each other’s company--the finale, an infectious ebullience.

The prospect of another hearing of Mendelssohn’s E-minor Violin Concerto has to engender mixed feelings. This time around, however, with Roger Wilkie playing the solo--he returned to his concertmaster’s chair later, for Schubert--and with Porat and the orchestra supplying affectionate and well-considered collaboration, the over-familiar work became a joyous rediscovery.

*

It was all there: the beauty, the feeling, the way it sings and says things that prove words inadequate. Wilkie, a familiar sight in concertmasters’ chairs around here, played it with surpassing virtuosity, a thrilling, legato tone and a sense of full emotional engagement. Who’d have thought it?

The program began, neatly but with a lower rank of confidence, with Weber’s “Preciosa” Overture.