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An uninspired conservatism was once more the order of the evening when New York-based ensemble, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, which had played in Orange County on Tuesday night, made its
appearance at Ambassador Auditorium on Wednesday. Andre Previn was again the conductor. With its earned reputation for an all-purpose musical versatility, the orchestra disappointed through
an unimaginative program, competently but unexcitingly played. In a city where polished and lively performances of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony happen virtually every season, it seemed
perverse that this touring East Coast band--numbering between 37 and 42 at this engagement--should close its first local visit with a merely pleasant and uneventful performance of that
familiar work. Transparency and virtuosity, elements we have long taken for granted when either the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra or the L.A. Philharmonic play the piece, were in short
supply. Previn’s able reading proved propulsive and sensible, but instrumental imbalances, overloudness in the strings and undeveloped total-ensemble values in the orchestra often made this
aggregation sound like an ad-hoc, not a veteran, musical body. * A tighter and more integrated profile characterized the orchestra’s playing of Mozart’s Oboe Concerto, K. 314, in which
Stephen Taylor was the ingratiating soloist, producing long Mozartean lines and effortless passagework with calm and charm. Taylor also wrote the showy, stylish and provocative cadenzas. The
program began with Haydn’s Symphony No. 102, reviewed in Thursday’s Calendar. MORE TO READ