MUSIC REVIEW : A Mozart Idyll in Ojai : Works by the Master, Maxwell Davies, Harbison End Festival

OJAI —  It was an idyllic, rhapsodic finale.

A tepid breeze caressed the leafy branches overhead. The sun bade a tender, temporary valedictory to the attentive crowd at Libbey Park. Delicate birds chirped a merry descant as an enlightened virtuoso named Charles Neidich ennobled the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.

All was well late Sunday afternoon with the Ojai Festival. For a few blissful moments, all was well with the world.

This sort of magic had not been pervasive throughout the long weekend of concerts in this agreeably sleepy village. Those with keen ears could pick up some justifiable grumbles, as usual.

The sound system distorted as much as it amplified. The program director, in a laudable quest to avoid the mundane, selected too much dutiful, forgettable, formula Mozart. A few concerts droned on beyond their welcome.

The works of the two distinguished composers-in-residence--Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and John Harbison--did not invariably seem mutually complementary. Both gentlemen proved better composers than conductors, though for different reasons. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra traveled a great distance to provide generally mediocre performances of an admittedly daunting repertory on a grueling schedule. The quality of the incidental soloists fluctuated drastically.

Still, the high points made it all worthwhile. Even if he could not erase memories of the legendary Bruno Hoffmann, Dennis James won all Mozartean hearts as a stylish champion of the nearly extinct glass armonica--an instrument that elevates to art the sound jokesters make at dinner parties when they rub wet fingers around the rims of wine glasses.

Lewis Morrison brought extraordinary poise and poignance to the ethereal resolution of Maxwell Davies’ masterly Clarinet Concerto, a.k.a. “Strathclyde” No. 4, under the composer’s obviously sympathetic hand.

Nothing on the generous agenda, however, quite matched the impact of Mozart’s windy benediction. Playing a modern approximation of the original basset clarinet, Neidich approached the instrumental challenge as if it were a bel-canto masterpiece.

He traced the long, intricate lines with darkly vibrant tone, endless breath and supple phrasing, adding discreet yet telling embellishments here and subtle cadenzas there. His graceful revelations found graceful reinforcement in the self-effacing support of the ever-bobbing Maxwell Davies and his hard-working orchestra.

The rest of the final concert had been more prosaic. The festivities began, alas, with four more minuets and four more German dances cranked out by Mozart in a less inspired mood. These dutiful gestures led to the U.S. premiere of Maxwell Davies’ heraldic Concerto for Horn and Trumpet (“Strathclyde” No. 3), a fascinating if somewhat turgid network of sea images surrounding a lusty if somewhat unruly brass dialogue.

Maxwell Davies’ Threnody for Michael Vyner, a British modern-music champion who died in 1989 at 43, made its mournful statement with stark economy.

After this moving elegy, Maxwell Davies volunteered an unscheduled encore of his bustling, accessible “Ojai Festival Overture,” which had been introduced the day before. This prompted Robert Calder Davis, the local benefactor who had inspired the piece, to dash down the aisle and present the maestro with a huge, locally grown orange. Some members of the generally sophisticated audience found the “spontaneous” gesture cute.

The noontime concert, devoted to vocal music of Mozart and Harbison, proved relatively disappointing. Much of the trouble could be attributed to Harbison’s rather limited conducting technique. His left hand certainly knows what his right hand is doing, and invariably does the same. That makes for a clear beat, but does not allow for much nuance or shading.

Mozart’s Masonic cantata, “Laut verkunde unsre Freude,” sounded like the insignificant effort it is, despite some elegant singing by tenor David Gordon, baritone Sanford Sylvan and a small contingent from the Los Angeles Master Chorale trained by Lenard Berglund.

An extended scene from “La Clemenza di Tito” seemed anticlimactic primarily because, apart from the mezzo-soprano Janice Felty, Ojai could not muster the bravura singers Mozart demanded. The otherwise illuminating program notes, incidentally, called the opera a “forgotten masterpiece.” It would be difficult to question the noun, but the adjective is dubious.

Major revivals have been staged in recent years in Salzburg and by both the Met and the New York City Opera. “Tito” has been broadcast and telecast nationally, and even Los Angeles has seen performances--at USC and the Music Center.

Turning to his own music, of which he actually may not be the most eloquent interpreter, Harbison conducted the ambitious “Elegiac Songs” based on Emily Dickinson texts (1974). These complex mood pieces, predicated on wildly shifting textures, vast dynamic variety and vocal lines that vacillate between heroic declamation and introspective lyricism, seem most affecting when they are least dense. Janice Felty coped valiantly with the wide leaps and expressive convolutions designed for the late, much lamented Jan DeGaetani. She could not cope, of course, with the awful imbalances imposed by the microphones.

Harbison closed the first half of the concert with Mozart’s exquisitely serene motet, “Ave verum corpus.” Bravely, if perhaps unwisely, he opened the second half with his own churning setting of the same text.

Unimportant postscript: The onstage dress code this season suggested no dress code. Among the visiting Scots, the women wore black skirts or slacks, the men black ties and white dinner jackets. Maxwell Davies opted for white dinner jacket but no tie. Harbison favored a brown business suit with a screaming red shirt and florid tie. Felty chose a fancy evening gown, while her vocal colleagues tended toward casual funk.

Sartorial eclecticism is just as popular in Ojai as musical eclecticism.