Last-Minute Changes in Long Beach Program

Some unwary patrons at the Long Beach Symphony concert Saturday night paid a dollar for a program that failed to tell them what they were hearing.

Without an announcement to the full house in Terrace Theater at the Long Beach Convention Center, guest conductor Lukas Foss led Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony and, from the full-size concert grand piano, Bach’s Clavier Concerto in D minor--instead of the scheduled “Nozze di Figaro” Overture and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

The explanation--finally given at intermission by a spokesman for the orchestra--was simple: the scheduled soloist, violinist Anne Akiko Meyer, sustained a back injury in New York on Wednesday and canceled her Long Beach appearance. Foss and the Long Beach forces repaired the program resourcefully.

Very resourcefully. Though there may be no crying need, in this enlightened year of 1990, to hear Bach’s keyboard concertos played on an instrument 250 years younger than the original model, Foss--who has been presenting this piece just this way for decades--made a good case for the accommodation.

He kept textures dry and crisp, stressed the linear aspects of the entire work, maintained a pristine melodic line and provided rock-solid rhythms throughout. The results, if odd, were handsome and, if one dare say it, stylish.

And the rest of his program showed off the virtuosic Long Beach Symphony in surprising ways: in a clarified, sometimes transparent, lilting and cherishably lightweight reading of the exposing “Haffner” Symphony; in a serious and vigorous run-through of Foss’ own “Night Music for John Lennon”--pretty, poignant, jazzy and ultimately touching--and in a spectacularly lush and big-boned performance of Ravel’s Second “Daphnis” Suite. The orchestra seems to have hit a new plateau of accomplishment.