Happy days are here again.

Having come up with a winning combination of the cheerful Nicholas McGegan leading an all-Mozart program at the Hollywood Bowl last year – opening overture, cheery piano concerto and big symphony – the Los Angeles Philharmonic repeated the formula Tuesday night and will again on Thursday. This time, to double the ebullience ante, there was Mozart’s “extremely jolly” (McGegan’s description) Concerto for Two Pianos with Katia and Marielle Labèque as soloists.

....the Two Piano Concerto, from 1779, is, in fact, the more theatrical work. Written for the composer to play with his sister, this is Mozart’s most playful concerto, full of “naughty humor,”

There is a lot of teasing and one-upmanship between the pianists, and it would be hard to imagine a duo more suited to this music than the glamorous Labèque sisters. They performed from memory, trills and scales rolling from one piano to the other as if a single instrument and player.

But there was also plenty of willfully individual display, and in the slow movement, they achieved a unified lovely, divine dignity. While I am not always a fan of the video aspect to the Bowl, the occasional use of a split screen to show the sisters was inspired and needn't have been only occasional.

An encore by the Labèques at least would have been warranted (Mozart wrote much exceptional music for two pianos and also for piano four hands).

Mark Swed