The Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra and its music director Lucinda Carver neatly explored three sides of that many-sided phenomenon, Mozart, Saturday night in John Anson Ford Amphitheatre.
First came the rarely heard "Gallimathias musicum," K. 32, a product of the boy wonder, age 10. Then, the Divertimento, K. 251, composed by the veteran craftsman of 20. Finally, the Symphony No. 40, a masterpiece of the full-blown genius of 32. The same intelligence that put together the program drove the performances, which were finely detailed affairs.
Mozart's "Gallimathias" proved a curiosity more than anything, a truly trivial potpourri of pop tunes and learned counterpoints in the same mold as father Leopold's "Toy" Symphony.
The Divertimento, for oboe, two horns and strings, was supposedly written (hastily) for his sister's, Nannerl's, 25th birthday, and shows the typical vitality and charm that the grown-up composer brought to such light fare. Though not as brilliant as some of his other efforts in the genre, its simple melodies and general bubbliness are, as always, irresistible.
