The Chamber Orchestra with Sean Chen

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia played Arturo Toscanini’s string orchestra arrangement of the Verdi at the end of their latest concert, and the enlarged forces underlined its operatic charm. The first movement played like a typical opera overture, previewing scenes from the drama we’re about to hear. The third movement could accompany a street scene or a melodramatic plot development, complete with an aria sung by the cello over plucked mandolins.

The arrangement made a good conclusion for a program that presented pieces from the core of the standard 19th-century repertoire by four of the most familiar names in the lineup: Haydn, Mozart, and Mendelssohn, in addition to Verdi. None of the pieces was particularly profound or passionate, but collectively they created a thoroughly enjoyable Sunday afternoon musicale.

The guest conductor for the affair, Nir Kabaretti, is a prime example of the world citizens who populate the international music scene. A citizen of Israel, born and raised in Tel Aviv, he received his advanced musical training in Vienna and currently conducts two American orchestras, the Southwest Florida Symphony on the East coast and the Santa Barbara Symphony on the West. His guest appearances in the first months of this year included the Opera di Roma in addition to the Kimmel Center. He lives in Florence with his wife and children, and you won’t be surprised to learn he speaks English, Italian, German, Spanish, and Hebrew.

Balance and proportion

The concert succeeded because Kabaretti led it with a good sense of balance and proportion. In the opening piece, the overture to Haydn’s opera Armida, Kabaretti maintained a well-calculated balance between the overture’s horn-and-woodwind military episodes and the lighter music that presumably evokes the spirit of the love-struck Saracen sorceress who seduces a noble Christian knight. When he accompanied the guest soloist, Sean Chen, in Mozart’s 27th piano concerto, he didn’t overdo all the passages in which the orchestra cuts loose while the pianist takes a break.

Chen provided Kabaretti with a worthy collaborator. Mozart’s last piano concerto is a subdued, reflective work, and Chen proved he could meet the primary test of a good Mozart interpreter: He captured Mozart’s elegant grace and serenity without sounding bland or dull.

Chen’s cadenzas — the unaccompanied solos the composer can place near the end of a movement — are a good example of his approach to Mozart. Soloists have a lot of leeway when they play concertos written before Beethoven’s era. They can write their own cadenzas; select from a library of cadenzas other people have created; or improvise on the spot, as soloists usually did in Mozart’s day. Chen chose to play Mozart’s own cadenzas, but he played the last one with so much good humor that its playful stops and repeats sounded completely spontaneous. He sounded like a personable young man when he participated in the “classical conversation” that follows the Chamber Orchestra’s Sunday concerts, and he sounded just as personable when he communicated with his piano.