Music : Mozart Enlivens 2nd Preview Program

Mozart will be a very audible presence with us at Hollywood Bowl this summer. On Saturday, the second of two preview week programs devoted to him and entrusted to conductor-pianist Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich proved a surprisingly enlivening and intimate affair.

Yes, most of the 14,309 in attendence clapped between every movement, and the sticky blessings of malathion spraying were counted among the aerial intrusions. But the playing of the much reduced Los Angeles Philharmonic remained steadfastly limber, balanced and appreciatively pointed.

The repertory interest Saturday lay in the concertos. Bishop-Kovacevich’s choice was the fey Concerto in B-flat, K. 456. He seemed to take it for its sinuous and sensuous textures in the well-integrated outer movements, while exposing the haunted mysteries of the variations with liquid articulation and generous applications of serious sentiment.

Principal horn William Lane stepped forward from the orchestra for the Concerto in D, K. 412. His way with this amiable oddity was imperturbably noble--even and glowing in sound, suave in phrasing and stylistically aloof.

The familiar Symphonies Nos. 29 in A and 40 in G minor turned out rather more routinely under Bishop-Kovacevich’s energetic leadership. There was much spirit and solidity to the informed performances, but little magic crossed the Bowl expanses.