Chamber concert dazzling, radiant

DARA MORALES, UTAH SYMPHONY CHAMBER ORCHESTERA, St. Mary's Church, Park City, Wednesday.

PARK CITY — To open the chamber-orchestra series at this year's Deer Valley Music Festival, music director Keith Lockhart and the Utah Symphony Chamber Orchestra indulged in a classical theme, playing works by Mozart and Mendelssohn.

Not only are the three works similar in character, they are also products of fertile young minds — Mozart's Symphony No. 28 in C major, K. 189K, and his Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216, and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 1 in C minor, were written when the composers were in their teens.

Mendelssohn rivals Mozart as a child prodigy. Both were precocious, writing a large number of works before they were out of their teens, much of which is still performed today. Both developed early as composers, and Mendelssohn's mature style manifested itself early.

In Mendelssohn's First Symphony, Lockhart brought out the symphony's character wonderfully with his well-defined reading. His interpretation skillfully captured the exuberance of the opening movement, the lyricism of the second, the robustness of the minuet and the energy of the finale. The Utah Symphony Chamber Orchestra played cohesively, and there was a fine balance among the sections.

In fact, the way the orchestra played Wednesday, in particular in the Mendelssohn, was in stark contrast to the shabby playing that was pervasive in the chamber-orchestra concerts at last year's festival. There were fewer substitute players in the orchestra Wednesday than is usual during the summer, and Lockhart for the most part elicited a nuanced performance from his musicians.

There were a few problems, nevertheless. In the Mozart symphony that opened the concert, the performance occasionally suffered from ill-defined phrasings and less-than-crisp articulation. Yet Lockhart's reading did manage to deftly convey the dazzling radiance of the music.

The Utah Symphony's principal second violinist Dara Morales was the evening's soloist. In her first solo outing since joining the orchestra in March 2004, Morales gave a richly textured reading of Mozart's G major Violin Concerto that spotlighted her wonderful artistry. She captured the youthful vitality and spirit of the work's outer movements succinctly, while underscoring the middle movement's exquisite melodicism with her eloquent playing.

While the five violin concertos that Mozart wrote are not technically challenging by today's standards, they are still demanding. And Morales acquitted herself admirably.

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E-mail: ereichel@desnews.com