Conductor Loebel a Welcome Guest at Copland Program

The gradual decline of Copland’s symphonic presence to just music from his most popular ballets and film scores has been emphatically reversed locally this month. Saturday, the Long Beach Symphony’s ongoing music-director search and the Copland centennial came together for a very eloquent evening at the Terrace Theater, courtesy of guest conductor David Loebel and the composer’s Third Symphony.

The recently appointed music director of the Memphis Symphony and a veteran associate conductor of the St. Louis and Cincinnati orchestras, Loebel seems to be an active but not self-aggrandizing leader. Here he made music with a graciousness and a zest that complemented perfectly the spirit of Copland’s big, utterly characteristic symphony.

This is music broadly conceived and tightly executed. Spare and questing as often as it is boldly dancing, it does need a steady, shaping hand from the podium. Loebel gave it dignity without pompousness, wit without calculation and revelation without indulgence. His interpretation was both logical and deeply felt, setting the sweeping melodies and kinetic explosions in carefully structured contexts.

The Long Beach players seemed committed and energized, giving Loebel an ovation of their own at the end. But whether they are not practicing as much now without a permanent boss or it was just one of those nights, this was a fidget-making performance for ensemble and intonation purists. There were beauties galore, but also enough glitches to remind us that this symphony is a dangerously exposing challenge.

As is Aram Khachaturian’s unjustly neglected Violin Concerto, composed just a few years before the Copland symphony. But 16-year-old soloist Howard Zhang played it with complete poise--sweet in tone, expressive in inflection and absolutely fearless. He has all of a prodigy’s expected technical attainments, and a welcome sense of exploration and personal connection, particularly in the sad, reflective stillnesses of the slow movement.

Loebel accompanied him with sensitive care. He also kept the orchestra alert for its opportunities to add color and commentary to Zhang’s steadily involving proceedings.

To open there was Glinka’s “Ruslan und Ludmila” Overture, where the basic interpretive question seems to be, how fast? Very, of course, was Loebel’s answer, but also nicely detailed along the impetuous way.