Aimez-Vous E-Flat?

Some conductors prefer Beethoven, others Wagner. Some like sopranos, others tenors. Conductor Peter Maag's rather specialized preference is for the key of E-flat major. "Tonalities are like colors," he explains. "Have you noticed that when Mozart attacks E-flat he al ways uses clarinets, and when he attacks D-major he always uses oboes? E-flat suggests something very mature and saturated. D-major music is whiter and sharper. E-flat suggests a dark tone, a dark color like dark blue or green."

Last week at Lincoln Center's Mozart-Haydn Festival, Maag demonstrated his preoccupation in a concert with the New York Chamber Orchestra. Three of the four works were in E-flat --Mozart's Symphony No. 39, and Haydn's Trumpet Concerto and "Schoolmaster" Symphony (which he conducted from the harpsichord). Maag also programmed Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23, but that was scored in A-major, and everybody pretended not to notice.

Tonal Anguish. What the audience did notice was that there was nothing minor about Maag's conducting talent. He has all the requirements for a superior conductor of Haydn and Mozart --a faultless sense of classical proportion and a keen ear for blended Mozartean sonority that allows important detail to come through crisply.

He is never so hurried that he loses the grace of an adagio and never so relaxed that he loses the punch of an allegro. He has a gifted sense of measure but, happily, never seems to be measuring. To hear him bring out the bittersweet tonal anguish lurking in the Symphony No. 39 was to realize for once just how much romantic sentiment really filled the classical little heart of Mozart.

Though this was his New York debut, Maag's music making was already familiar to American audiences. He has conducted an impressive number of recordings--notably the Mozart Prague and the Mendelssohn Scotch--in the past 15 years. Save for a four-year stint as conductor of the Vienna Volksoper, Maag, 49, has been a freelancer in Europe's concert halls and opera houses for most of his musical life.

He is a ruddy-faced, humorous ex-divinity student (Lutheran) who likes to dwell on food when he is not thinking about key signatures. While rehearsing a Haydn Notturno for his second concert, he says, "I told the orchestra, 'This music was intended to be played after a heavy dinner of turtle soup, a souffle, duckling, venison, ice, and crepe suzette! And now play with all that in your stomach.' They understood."

The next night, Maag was back again in Philharmonic Hall repeating his triumph with a program that included Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 26, but was climaxed by Haydn's "Drumroll" Symphony. Key of E-flat.

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