MUSIC REVIEWS : Pairing of Eastern, Western Notions

East-meets-West programs can be undiscriminating, but that was not the case Saturday for the Long Beach Symphony. Music director JoAnn Falletta paired Western ideas of Asian cultures with Chinese takes on the symphony orchestra and its forms in a bracing and balanced concert at Terrace Theater.

The highly personalized and syncretic bookends were “Duo Ye” No. 2 by Chen Yi and Stravinksy’s “Song of the Nightingale.” Long on glissando mysteries and polymetric bristle, Chen’s 1985 composition bore little resemblance to the slow folk dance described in her printed program note.

Falletta gave it a nuanced reading, emphatic in pulsating glory but alert to sudden shifts in hue and texture. Her account of the Stravinsky tone poem proved equally vivid in imagery and detail, although a bit too languorous in storytelling.

Another narrative formed the programmatic substance of “The Butterfly Lovers” Concerto, composed by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang in 1959 for violin and subsequently arranged for pipa, a Chinese lute. Hung rather cumbersomely on a large sonata structure without the motivating harmonic dialectics, the concerto suggests Tchaikovsky, more than anything else, in the orchestra.

The solo part is another matter, projected here with discreetly amplified virtuosity and musicality by pipa master Tang Liangxing. Fluid tremolo dominated his playing, which developed communicative character through a wide range of timbral and articulative shading.

“The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan” by Charles Griffes matches “The Butterfly Lovers” in calories and color. As throughout the demanding agenda, the Long Beach principals gave Falletta responsive resources for her deft tone painting.