MUSIC REVIEWS : L.B. Symphony on Spanish-Latin Tack

When the Long Beach Symphony convened on Saturday at the Terrace Theater, there was a clear, theme-driven agenda at hand, and a relatively venturesome one at that. All night, nary a German and/or 19th-Century work impeded on this little festival of Spanish and Latin-American music. That alone warrants kudos.

Which is not to say that esoterica was not the thrust of conductor JoAnn Falletta’s program. Bolstered by the popular concert standbys of Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez” and Manuel de Falla’s Second Suite from “El Sombrero de Tres Picos,” the program also gave exposure to the work of lesser-known Latin American composers.

Argentine Alberto Ginastera’s “Variaciones concertantes” is a moody mosaic of 12 parts. Languid harp-and-cello duets lead to driving folk dance-like cadences, with hints of tonality being pushed to the breaking point.

Guitarist David Tannenbaum attended to Rodrigo’s concerto with the assurance and passion of one who has known the piece intimately, but is still in love. Never mind the more boisterous outer sections, it is the Adagio--the picture of exquisite sadness--that lingers deepest in the memory.

Mexico’s unsung iconoclast, Silvestre Revueltas combined indigenous folk influences with striking orchestral ideas, as in “Sensemaya.” Its bold, brassy assertions over a hypnotic 7/8 rhythm were delivered crisp and steamy by an orchestra with expanded percussion.

Astor Piazzolla, who died in 1992, was widely deemed the king of the “nuevo tango,” reinvigorating tango traditions with modern ideas. It was only late in his life that his aspirations as a serious composer began to find fruition, as with his 1988 “Tangazo.” Here, seductive mood swings range from quiet legato intensity to fervent, even comical gusto.

Gusto prevailed as Falla’s celebratory splash closed a concert whose quotient of exotica was in direct correlation to the rarity of hearing this music in the concert hall.