MUSIC REVIEW : Kraft Concerto Revived by L.B. Symphony, Golabek

Twenty-one years and three months ago, Mona Golabek, assisted by Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, gave the world premiere performance of William Kraft’s virtuosic but thorny Piano Concerto. The Times’ critic, Martin Bernheimer, dubbed the work, “a vital success.”

Where the piece has been since that long-ago night in November, 1973, one cannot tell. In any case, it returned, courtesy of the Long Beach Symphony, Golabek and guest conductor Gerhardt Zimmerman, Saturday in Terrace Theater at the Long Beach Convention Center.

And, in its revised version of 1989, it repeated its success before an enthusiastic audience.

This is remarkable, because the work is not what anyone might describe as accessible. It is not neo-Romantic, like contemporaneous (1960s and ‘70s) American piano concertos by Barber and Corigliano. Lyricism may be part of its makeup, but lushness is not--there are no singing or soaring strings seducing the listeners in this piece.

Moreover, exotic percussion riffs--one of the composer’s signatures--appear with some regularity in the work, as does really grating atonality.

Still, it is easy to admire Kraft’s inventiveness and his anti-formulaic writing, as well as his idiomatic use of the piano. Golabek remains master of all she surveys, compositionally, and this work belongs to her and her resourceful, unfazeable virtuosity; it certainly did, Saturday. Under Zimmerman, the Long Beach band gave a confident reading.

Perhaps more rehearsal would have benefited the rest of the program, which consisted of a suite from Howard Hanson’s opera, “Merry Mount,” and Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony, both respectably but raggedly performed, and without that edge of energy and urgency that this orchestra can achieve on its better nights.