Frank Loesser Songs at the New York Philharmonic When the New York Philharmonic meets Broadway, wonderful things can happen. At the orchestra's spring gala at Avery Fisher Hall on Monday evening, the songs of the chronically overlooked Frank Loesser received well-deserved royal treatment. Conducted by Ted Sperling, the concert sustained an ideal, acoustically perfect mixture of brassy confidence and vaulting romanticism. By overlooked, I don't mean forgotten. It's just that when the usual short lists of great American songwriters are compiled, led by names like Gershwin, Porter, Berlin and Rodgers, Loesser's name is not on them, although he was their artistic equal. As an all-star cast performed his songs in a program titled "Anywhere I Wander: The Frank Loesser Songbook," the joy, humor and passion of his work infused the hall with the buzz of rediscovery. Loesser's ease with rhymed everyday speech, including the most arcane slang, was second to none. Who else but Loesser could have written "On a Slow Boat to China" (sung by Jason Danieley), whose jauntily lecherous come-on ("I'd love to get you on a slow boat to China") was an expression used by card sharks to describe their glee at playing with a loser? Has any pop music flirtation been as delicious as "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (sung by several couples)? Name me a character song that is wittier and more specific than "Adelaide's Lament" (sung by Mary Testa) from "Guys and Dolls" or "I Believe in You" (sung haltingly by Robert Morse, the original J. Pierrepont Finch) from "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Loesser's underappreciated other side - the semi-operatic composer of "The Most Happy Fella" - received its full due. The heft of Bryn Terfel's bass-baritone made "Rosabella" an operatic bear hug. In the love duet "My Heart Is So Full of You," sung with Victoria Clark, you were aware of how the melody of a song expressing an uncontainable joy also bursts at the seams. The concert hit two peaks in which you couldn't imagine a better performance. The first was Ms. Clark's searching "Anywhere I Wander" (from the 1952 movie "Hans Christian Andersen"), whose brooding orchestration deepened the song's metaphysical wanderlust. And Mr. Danieley's rendition of "Never Will I Marry," from "Greenwillow," Loesser's one Broadway failure, lofted this obscure ballad into a philosophical dimension. Strong contributions came from Ann Hampton Callaway, who brought a jazz element to "I Wish I Didn't Love You So"; Marc Kudisch (a muscular "Joey, Joey, Joey"); and a singing-and-dancing trio (John Bolton, Bernard Dotson and Michael Seelbach) whose footwork was choreographed by Andrew Palermo. Jo Sullivan Loesser, Loesser's widow and the indefatigable keeper of his flame, recalled living with the great man, who liked to awaken at 4 in the morning and compose on a silent piano with earphones. Her breakfast was his lunch; while she drank coffee, he had a martini. Ms. Loesser, who met her husband while in the cast of "The Most Happy Fella," applied her agile high soprano to a touching rendition of "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year," one of the first songs for which he wrote the music as well as the words.