Weiss Is Star and Team Player

IRVINE â€”  Since he joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic as its concertmaster in 1979, violinist Sidney Weiss has been one of the constants in Southern California musical life, not as a firebrand, but as a sure cornerstone.

Saturday night, he demonstrated his considerable strengths, both as soloist and as sectional leader, during the Mozart Camerata’s seasonal opening at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

First in Beethoven’s Romances for Violin and Orchestra--offered in the order in which they were most likely composed, beginning with No. 2, the F-major Adagio cantabile--and then in Mozart’s brief Rondo, K. 373, Weiss displayed attentiveness and self-possessed understatement.

He brought a robust--not flashy--approach to the earlier Romance, resulting in a meaty and dark performance that seemed to call for more flexibility of tempo than his accompanists were able to provide.

In the G-major Romance, and even more so in Mozart’s Rondo, Weiss kept to attractive simplicity, never becoming the agonizing poet, but always the well-spoken pillar of calm graciousness. Under the baton of music director Ami Porat, the Camerata matched the violinist’s phrasing with sympathetic discipline and the same careful detail that enlivened the entire program.

Violinist Hakop Mekinian, who had served as concertmaster during the first half of the concert, let Weiss take that position for Haydn’s Symphony No. 86 in D, which proved to be the high point of the evening.

Porat led the orchestra in a clear, purposeful reading, full of thoughtful characterization and contagious energy, consistently mindful of harmonic interest.

Modest attendance heralded this initial concert in the orchestra’s more prestigious, first-night locale. Nevertheless, audience approbation prompted Porat to offer the Allegro di molto, from Mozart’s Divertimento in B-flat, K. 137, as encore. As in past years, the program was slated to be repeated Sunday afternoon at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach.