As time goes by, classic songs prove their worth, with tunes or lyrical hooks that get under the skin and push the listener's buttons working that old black magic on sentimental souls.

The Springfield Symphony and maestro Mark Russell Smith, along with singers Jan Horvath, Doug LaBrecque and Michael Maguire, presented "Bravo Hollywood" Saturday evening at Symphony Hall, delighting the SSO Pops audience with a generous helping of those classic songs they hadn't heard in a blue moon.

Highlights of the concert included a superb arrangement of Henry Mancini's timeless tune, "Moon River", garnished with glistening, honeyed trumpet playing, and beautifully sung by the trio.

Horvath delivered a sultry, growling account of "Blues in the Night" in the second half, employing her considerable vocal range to its most telling effect, and partnered Maguire in a tender, winning account of Lerner and Loewe's "I Remember It Well", from the Hollywood musical that brought Maurice Chevalier out os retirement, "Gigi".

The singing sensation of the evening, without a doubt, was Doug LaBrecque. Defying his baritone program billing by usurping the tenor range with golden ease, LaBrecque charmed his audience with a forthright presentation of "Over the Rainbow" in the first half, and exhibited some fancy footwork in addition to superb singing in "Singing in the Rain" in the second half.

A young veteran of Hal Prince productions of "Phantom of the Opera" and "Showboat" with many major shows under his belt, LaBrecque is a force to be reckoned with. His vocal clarity is matched by a down-to-earth sincerity of diction and presentation that instantly engages his audience without compromising the integrity of pitch or line.

The show included some inventive medleys, like the clever interweaving of Jerome Kern's "I Won't Dance" and "A Fine Romance", offered with refined panache by Maguire and Horvath.

The SSO musicians distinguished themselves with solid renditions of the themes from "42nd Street" and "Rocky", once again featuring top-notch brass playing.

Arrangements of "Hooray for Hollywood" and "That's Entertainment" were slightly less successful, perhaps because arranger Bill Holcombe tried to throw a little of everything into the mix and succeeded only in denaturing otherwise respectable tunes by chopping them up with fanfares, waltzes and glitzy effects - but that's showbiz.

Holcombe also put his heavy-handed stamp on "Over the Rainbow", eventually amassing an instrumental texture so dense that the vocalist abandoned the songs' essential opening octave leap so his first note would be heard above the orchestration.

The concert proper concluded with a slick reading of "Le Jazz Hot" from "Victor/Victoria", and the trio returned with an encore of "New York, New York" to send their audience away humming.