There was a time, and not that long ago, that I dreaded attending an all-Mozart program that was not played by an ensemble in the Chicago Symphony-Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra league. Much as I love Mozart’s music, his style is a uniquely daunting combination of complex ideas suspended in frightfully exposed textures that allows no room for even the slightest imprecision.

And if I were in charge of things, I would pass an edict that prevented community orchestras from ever playing Mozart in public, save for audiences comprised solely of members’ mothers and great aunts.

Orchestra Nova

^{Courtesy photo}

So I am happy to report that after hearing Orchestra Nova San Diego play its season-opening all-Mozart concert Friday (October 15) at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, Artistic Director/Conductor Jung-Ho Pak’s fleet ensemble has become a bona fide Mozart orchestra. In a program that included three of the most sublime Mozart offerings—the “Jupiter” Symphony, the Clarinet Concerto and the Overture to Don Giovanni—Orchestra Nova played with a sophisticated sense of Classical style, a wonderfully relaxed but vibrant sonority, consistently precise intonation, and radiant unity within every section.

Whle there is nothing revolutionary about opening a concert with the Overture to Don Giovanni, Pak’s approach proved fresh and effervescent, allowing the orchestra to show its many strengths in a single, compact movement.

Orchestra Nova’s Principal Clarinet Frank Renk illuminated Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with soaring, resplendent sonic arcs, fusing precision and vitality in ideal proportion. I relished his warm, rich, “woody” clarinet sonority, unlike the pristine, covered sound that so many contemporary orchestral clarinetists cultivate, perhaps to distance themselves from their klezmer and jazz cousins. But considering that Mozart wrote his Clarinet Concerto for a lower-pitched bass clarinet, Renk’s macho sound could not be more apt.

Pak kept his orchestra whisper-quiet when it accompanied Renk, a wise decision considering the very live acoustics of the cathedral, but he unleashed its more bravura capabilities on its own. In the various clever excursions between the finale’s jovial Rondo theme, Pak deftly brought out the individual character of each segment. My sole caveat concerns the orchestra’s sluggish pace in the luminous Adagio movement, where the strings’ mushy attacks did not adequately complement Renk’s shimmering—but not placid—solo. Otherwise, the combination of soloist and orchestra was a match made in heaven.

For the “Jupiter” Symphony, Pak had his players perform standing, an 18^th-century convention now followed not only by many period instrumental ensembles, but also by the Emerson String Quartet. To my ears, this stance adds vitality and drive to the music’s forte passages and a welcome buoyancy to its more reflective sections. Pak’s “Jupiter” displayed all the requisite virtues of this near-perfect symphony: muscular discipline in the composer’s stentorian outbursts, followed by melting, lyrical contrasts of mood and dynamics.

In the Andante cantabile, the first violins provided an unusually supple, lustrous line, matched by dulcet woodwind solos at the movement’s close. Hernan Constantino filling in as Concertmaster in this performance, provided stellar leadership in that essential role. Pak brought out the brio of the Menuetto movement, yet made room for the Trio’s subtle humor. And Mozart’s grand fugue in the finale provided a burst of aural fireworks appropriate to such a celebratory evening.

This program repeats October 16 at the Irwin M. Jacobs Qualcomm Hall and October 18 at Sherwood Auditorium.

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