Falletta Skillfully Delivers a Lavish Program of Works

It was the last concert of the season for the Long Beach Symphony, and music director JoAnn Falletta seemed loath to let her audience leave for the summer with any heartstrings untugged, any sentiments unstirred. She matched the effusions of Korngold’s Violin Concerto--and the West Coast debut of the lyrically inclined soloist Miranda Cuckson--with Bruckner’s heady “Romantic” Symphony on Saturday evening at Terrace Theater, and left us exhilarated and exhausted in almost equal measure.

The composer supplied the “Romantic” sobriquet for his Fourth Symphony himself, and whatever he meant by that, it is indeed a vast summation of symphonic effect from Beethoven through Schumann and Liszt, extravagant in emotion and outsized in sound.

The Fourth also speaks readily to post-minimalist ears, with its obsessive patterning, slow harmonic motion and chugging motor energies. Falletta hopped on its currently crowded bandwagon with little thought in changing its direction, but with lots of ideas about restoring the original ride. She brought the big tunes out front, kept the internal sonic machinery ticking over nicely and allowed plenty of dynamic action in the suspension.

Her orchestra responded with easy power and balance. Principal horn Calvin Smith’s noble solos led the blazing contributions of the brass choir, and the viola section provided a quieter sort of heroism centering the rich, earthy song of the slow movement.

Bruckner symphonies represent the musical world into which Erich Korngold was born and can still be heard as generally affectionate, sometimes anguished, echoes in his 1945 Violin Concerto. Filled with themes from Korngold’s movie scores and well-dressed orchestrally, the Concerto has never lacked for partisans, from Heifetz on.

The Juilliard-trained Cuckson delivered its often angular but never crabby lines with rich, carefully positioned sound. She could run astray in some of the more actively scampering passages, but pointed the prevailing lyricism with eloquent grace. Falletta and the orchestra supported her with accommodating flair.