Falletta, Orchestra Rise to Challenges

As it proved again, at the opening of its 1998-99 season Saturday night at Terrace Theater, the Long Beach Symphony stands on the brink of a hard-won, long-accumulating virtuosity.

Led by music director JoAnn Falletta, the ensemble gave a mostly polished performance of a challenging program, one encompassing two complex works by Richard Strauss plus Hindemith’s tricky, exposing “Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber” and the Piano Concerto (1985) by Andre Previn.

With no obvious signs of effort, the orchestra, conducted with unflagging energy, bright perspectives and rich detailing by Falletta, found all the seriousness and many of the facets in this program, thus opening its 64th season with panache.

The inner life in Hindemith’s kaleidoscopic showpiece glowed, as did most of its surfaces--momentary raucousness notwithstanding. For Strauss’ “Death and Transfiguration” and Salome’s Dance from the climactic last half-hour of Strauss’ opera “Salome,” the Long Beach players rose to all difficult occasions with brilliance, mellowness, articulate solo voices and clear textures.

Because it has been performed in Southern California only once before--at its U.S. premiere in 1991 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic--Previn’s handsome and substantial Piano Concerto, played on this occasion by the deeply resourceful Horacio Gutierrez, demanded close scrutiny.

It is a deceptively accessible work, one that might be called derivative of Shostakovich, Ravel and Satie, among others, but that actually has its own strong personality. Its characteristics include wit, poetry, songfulness and a bittersweet emotional range. It is both attractive and beauty filled, and the piano writing, not to mention the well-crafted orchestral part, is idiomatic and thrilling.

Gutierrez achieved a performance both affectionate and noble, leaping all hurdles.