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Schubert
Schwanengesang
Matthias Goerne
Christoph Eschenbach
Harmonia Mundi
Opera, music, theater, and art in Los Angeles and beyond
In appearances presented Monday and Tuesday by the San Francisco Symphony as part of the Great Performers Series, Dudamel and his band offered up a head-spinning mass of puzzlements....Things didn’t much improve in Chicago where Andrew Patner reported in the Chicago Sun-Times on performances of Adam’s City Noir and Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony,
There were readings marked by phenomenal power and inventiveness, and others dragged down into a morass of ostentatious mannerism. At times Dudamel and the orchestra seemed utterly in sync, only to turn the page and come to grief on a simple question of ensemble or instrumental balance. The orchestra itself struggled in parts (the brass was particularly unpredictable) while excelling elsewhere (especially the strings). Where are they now? Where are they heading? Your guess is as good as mine.
But I’m not seeing or hearing a lot of development. His repertoire of full symphonic works remains small. In a new addition for this tour, Tchaikovsky’s B minor “Pathetique” Sixth Symphony, Op. 74, Dudamel often went more for effect than either deep or subtle understanding. As was the case even more so with the first encore, the Intermezzo from Puccini’s opera “Manon Lescaut,” too often the dynamic choices were two: loud and louder. These emphases made for a third movement march both well-paced and stirring, but not much else in the rest of the work....Patner wasn’t the only windy city scribe who dared to dissent though. The Chicago Tribune’s John von Rhein weighed in with significant negatives as well.
Most disconcerting, though, is Dudamel’s continuing difficulty – or lack of concern? – with section balances and ensembling. An experienced conductor should be able not only to prepare and lead his own interpretation of a piece but to detect and fix problems in performance quickly and correctly. Dudamel seemed so caught up in his conception of the work that he appeared not to notice lack of dynamic and rhythmic synch, ragged patches and peculiar drops in tension after big effects.
There's no question he is inordinately talented, a brilliant and inspiring podium dervish who can get an orchestra to do anything he wishes while lifting an audience out of its seats. Even so, there sometimes appears to be a disconnect between the musical ends and the means he employs to achieve them. Half-formed interpretative ideas betray a lack of musical depth. The problem is not so much one of faulty instincts as where and how he channels those instincts....These are only excerpts from the reviews, of course, so I’d encourage you to follow the links to read the whole thing yourself. Of course, this is only the first week of the tour, and the L.A. Phil will appear in Washington, Philadelphia and New York this week. Here’s hoping things pick up for them a bit more now that the cat is out of the bag about the hype monster created around the L.A. Phil’s new maestro.
Dudamel looked to be in ecstasy on the podium, slashing the air with his baton, crouching and levitating as he drove the Russian warhorse onward. But that visual show of emotion did not translate into a particularly coherent or deeply felt reading. Pacing was erratic, balances were careless and there were noticeable lapses of tension between melodramatic effusions. Tchaikovsky's final plunge into black despair and death can be a shattering experience; not here. Only the march movement really worked.
Labels: LA Philharmonic 09/10
Schubert
Schwanengesang
Matthias Goerne
Christoph Eschenbach
Harmonia Mundi
Pärt
Creator Spiritus
Paul Hiller
Theater of Voices
Harmonia Mundi
Verdi Macbeth
Pappano, cond
Keenlyside/Monastyrska
Royal Opera House
Opus Arte
Massenet Don Quichotte
Gergiev, cond
Mariinsky Opera Orch
Mariinskyi
Rhim
Astralis
Rademann, cond
Berlin RIAS Chamber Chorus
Harmonia Mundi
Follow Along
Brian
Los Angeles
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