MUSIC REVIEW : Chamber Orchestra Program Ends on High Note : Pianists’ rendition of Claude Bolling work earns a spontaneous standing ovation, but ensemble’s Handel and Mozart efforts lacked coherence.

IRVINE —  Music Director Micah Levy led his Orange County Chamber Orchestra through an enterprising program Sunday afternoon. But though the nearly full house at Irvine Barclay Theatre responded enthusiastically to the classical cocktail stylings of Claude Bolling, the musical results in Handel and Mozart were disappointing.

Opening the concert, Handel’s Concerto Grosso from “Alexander’s Feast” benefited from fine solo playing by violinists Diana Halprin and Joseph Goodman and cellist Maurice Grants, making it possible to overlook the imprecise intonation and rhythm of the small accompanying forces.

Next, pianists Paulina Drake and Norberto Cappone took center stage for a performance of Mozart’s two-piano Concerto, K. 365. Unlike duo-piano teams where player A is indistinguishable from player B, Drake was bright and articulate while Cappone sounded dark and suave, and, perhaps because they are husband and wife, they had a rare feel for the interplay between their parts.

As a result, their different interpretations of the paired musical sequences made for engrossing listening. Drake and Cappone were not completely comfortable with Mozart’s technical demands, however, and parts of the concluding Rondo were a scramble.

The undernourished orchestral accompaniment was acceptable when it was caught up in the soloists’ musical passion, and oboists Valerie De Carlo and Electra Reed provided some exquisite moments. But the lack of good harmonic foundation in the middle and lower strings (only one each of viola, cello and bass) too often resulted in incomplete musical coherence.

After intermission Drake and Cappone, with bassist Don Ferrone and drummer Kari Miettinen in minor supporting roles, returned to give what was billed as the world premiere of Bolling’s “Sonata for Two Pianists” No. 2. Its sophisticated European jazz noodlings, with occasional overtones of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Rachmaninoff, are based on a classical piano versus jazz piano stance.

In Part 3, Bolling gives up what little pretense there is to the scenario and just lets the two pianists play beautifully if blandly. Not surprisingly, after Drake and Cappone finished with the last of their expertly terraced riffs, the audience rose in a spontaneous standing ovation.