Mozart and Mahler: Sarasota Orchestra. Guest conductor Steven Sloane, pianist Shai Wosner. Revised Friday. Until Sunday. Van Wezel Performing Arts Room. 941-953-3434; sarasotaorchestra.org

When guest conductor Steven Sloane chose this week’s Sarasota Orchestra Masterpiece concert schedule, he wasn’t primarily thinking of the large audiences of Mozart’s most famous piano concerto and the Laos Symphony. more accessible from Mahler. Rather, he sought to test the courage of orchestral musicians and find out if there was this certain chemistry that can make music even more magical.

I fully agree with Sloane when he noted that a lot can be learned from the performance of a classical masterpiece by an orchestra. This is even truer when it is as well known and loved as Mozart’s Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467.

While he may not be well known locally, pianist Shai Wosner has an impressive career. As a soloist, Wosner exuded a sense of calm confidence, a chord that goes well with the delicacy of this concerto. Demanding races which require technical ease, no bravado, mark the exterior movements. Wosner balanced the energy of flair with just the right amount of elegance to make this concerto shine.

The sublime long arches of slow motion, known to all for their use in the 1967 film “Elvira Madigan”, require great skill and control to maintain the floating quality of the score. It is as if the whole orchestra, no matter how small for this concerto, were lifting weights very slowly with careful control.

Sloane, as I could see, led without a baton, which seemed to facilitate that tight control over the things that matter. Throughout the concerto we heard tiny inflections, gentle blooms, and dynamic swells that piqued interest and called attention to often overlooked details. The musicians responded exceptionally, even with a bobbled note or two, to everyone’s delight.

This same control is paramount in the opening of Mahler’s Symphony No.1 in D major, where a unison pianissimo sustained through the strings spreads a blanket of pre-dawn fog from which timid notes emerge. wind and brass solo. Sloane literally set the scene by raising his stick and waiting for the audience to calm down completely before continuing. The result was as magical as the score dictates.

It still has the quality of the rule-breaking play that shocked audiences when it premiered in 1889 in Budapest. Even though it is now quite familiar, it is no less exciting today as Sloane urged the musicians to bring out the color and exuberance of the many scenes in this musical picture.

The score evokes walks through the countryside, hunting scenes, village festivals, a klezmer band, town halls, and the mother of all thunderclaps tossing a storm of invigorating music. Sloane strikes me as a savvy conductor with a budget style, but he put out the fire here and the musicians were by his side.

Was there any chemistry? Really, only musicians and the conductor can say for sure, as the performances at all levels this season have been outstanding. However, in tonight’s concert, every section and soloist of the orchestra deserves a shout out for one trick or another. The percussionists skillfully kept their hands full, the horns rose and went out, the strings proved they could whisper even in droves, the woodwinds gave lyrical force, the trumpets on and off stage were tight and precise, and the blade background of low brass supported this massive orchestra with copious polish. Good game!