Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

This month’s issue of Gramophone features a cover story on the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s current music director Gustavo Dudamel. It’s a somewhat odd piece that reads mostly as damage control over the continuing questions about Dudamel’s musical sophistication and the presence or absence of any broader artistic vision. Editor James Inverne notes in his own commentary that so much of what has been written about Dudamel focuses on his work with “El Sistema” and young musicians in general. “Almost all the media tend to want to ask [Dudamel] about El Sistema. That’s dangerous for him, because it takes away any real sense of interpretative vision, of a through-line to his performances. Then when the media descend on some big concert with the LA Phil, for instance, it becomes a one-off judgement as far as headline writers are concerned. Put crudely (it often is), it’s ‘Is he worth the hype?’” Thus Dudamel has become the victim of his own hype with the music press overlooking his musical ability as they are blinded by stories of his own enthralling personal story and many good works. It’s clearly time to buttress that musical image, so the Gramophone, turns to Dudamel and the LA Phil’s cheerleader-in-chief, the Los Angeles Times’s Mark Swed, for its story on that purported “interpretative vision.”

Of course, the irony that Swed, and the Gramophone, are two of the chief architects of that hype to begin with is besides the point for the article that ensues. Much of the piece recounts Dudamel’s experience with Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony and his first experiences conducting Nielsen, Sibelius and Bruckner. There is talk about his love for this music that he had no virtually no exposure to prior to arriving in Gothenburg in 2007. (Swed notes he had conducted Sibelius as a student on a few occasions.) We are reminded how Dudamel prefers to conduct from memory and how he can sing parts of scores apparently on command.

But nearly a third of Swed’s article is a defense against the major criticisms Dudamel and the L.A. Philharmonic have faced during his tenure with the orchestra. First is the matter of the decidedly mixed reviews the orchestra received in its first American and European tours where Dudamel’s penchant for histrionically slow or fast tempos were called out by many professional music writers. This decision, according to the interview, was a conscious one intended at least in part, to make the tempo changes between movements even more dramatic. And while Swed, and Inverne in his quotation above, suggest that critics’ negative reactions to these performances were somehow unfair due to a perceived bias in people not familiar enough with Dudamel’s work, I’m here to tell you sometimes a first impression is dead on. Dudamel’s through-line in L.A. has been a tortuous one to listen to, plagued with balance problems and an effort to instill drama into music in a way that ironically has the effect of often destroying it in the process. The Brahms' series that concluded the season went nowhere with half of the new works scheduled for the show evaporating into nothing and none of the Brahms symphonies rising to the point that one would considered them memorable.

The other defense made in the Gramophone article concerns the criticism that Dudamel has little experience and interest in new or recent classical music. Swed points to the Gothenburg, and subsequent L.A. premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Glorious Percussion as an example of a new piece that Dudamel took on and liked. “He didn’t know what to make of it when he first looked at the score, but now he is in love with the work and with doing new pieces. Already in Los Angeles Dudamel programmes substantially more new and recent music than any conductor of a major U.S. orchestra.” Or at least he used to. I’m not sure what data Swed is basing that assertion on, but I can tell you Dudamel is leading almost none of the new and recent music in the L.A. Phil’s 2011/2012 season. And Glorious Percussion aside, he has had little to say about or has shown little advocacy for new music in Los Angeles in his haphazard tenure here thus far.

As much as Swed’s defense of Dudamel in the latest Gramophone would like to suggest that the more one is exposed to Dudamel’s conducting the more one appreciates it, the exact opposite is actually the case. The more you hear, the more you realize this young man whose “…accelerated rise to fame …clearly out-paced his professional conducting experience” is still learning his craft day-by-day at the most unlikely and inappropriate of places, as the head of one of the world’s greatest orchestras. Nice work if you can get it.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 11/12

I really wasn’t planning on saying anything more about the L.A. Philharmonic’s quasi-disastrous U.S. tour that concluded on Saturday in New York. (For the latest bad news, see Justin Davidson's review in New York magazine.) However, following Mark Swed’s further attempt at damage control in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, I feel compelled to open my mouth again. In his piece, Swed acknowledges that many major reviews of the L.A. Phil on tour have been negative, particularly with regards to the conducting skills of Gustavo Dudamel. (A "drubbing" is the term he used.) He also recognizes that while a “backlash” was not unexpected, the come-down after an unprecedented amount of positive attention was more than anticipated despite its inevitability. Of course, there is zero mention of the fact that Swed himself is one of the primary architects of this wave of hype and overstatement by his penning one breathless, unquestioning review of Dudamel’s performances here in L.A. after the next. The fact is that the sound of the orchestra is no worse now than it has been at any time during this 09/10 season under Dudamel. The difference now is that there are many more critical voices across the country who are unwilling to ignore the real problems that exist for the orchestra under Dudamel’s guidance at this time. Swed's rose-colored glasses seem welded to his head as he continues to minimize and look the other way from the music director’s penchant for histrionic dynamics and lack of precision.

Of course, the response to all of the criticism now that someone from out of town recognizes the emperor’s lack of clothing is for Swed to suggest that Dudamel is doing something groundbreaking and new by presenting old standards in ways that lie outside the expectations of listeners familiar with them. And, although he is clearly in the minority in his assessment of Dudamel's work to date, he goes further to imply that the conductor’s rock star status represents the future of classical music,

And all the excitement seemed too much for uptight Lincoln Center guards keeping me and mob at bay as we tried unsuccessfully to get backstage. Classical music isn’t supposed to be like this, which, of course, is what the reviews had been saying all along.

While this could be the dawning of a new age in Western Culture, I doubt Swed and a surprisingly small cohort of classical music writers at this point are the only ones to recognize it. I’ll agree that Dudamel is certainly bringing new faces and noisy crowds to concert halls unaccustomed to them. However, what Swed fails to see is that there is a difference between changing people’s minds about basic principles and riding on the wave of novelty. Dudamel won’t be the latest model forever. And when he isn’t, whether or not all those new-found listeners will really want to continue hearing Tchaikovsky or whatever else is on the bill seems rather unlikely to me. What we have here, in Gustavo Dudamel’s L.A. Philharmonic is a first, all right—America’s first “classical crossover” orchestra. An ensemble with a popular and enthusiastic following but which garners little respect or interest among people who actually like or follow classical music over the long term. Or, as my friend Jim says, we’ve got Lang Lang with a baton. Who cares what the L.A. Phil plays as long as Dudamel is on the podium? Who will care when he’s not?

So far what I have been saying about the Dud and the L.A. Phil all season long (and even before) is turning out to be closer to the truth than not. So what happens next? If I’m a betting man, the backlash will continue into a European tour next year. Meanwhile at home, as Dudamel becomes less of a topic of the moment, the predominantly novelty-seeking crowds will begin to thin out when they notice that the orchestra will be playing classical music most all of the time. How far civic boosterism will go in supporting this relationship beyond this contraction is anybody’s guess. Maybe things will change. I certainly hope they do. The orchestra has come so far in terms of its reputation to lose so much ground so quickly. Maybe Dudamel and the orchestra will reach some place that they're actually tolerable to listen to when playing together for more than 20 minutes at a stretch. And maybe, as Anthony Tommasini suggested in the New York Times on Friday, Dudamel will spend some time "immersing himself in the repertory."

Labels: LA Philharmonic 09/10

The Prophet Jeremiah by Michelangelo

This weekend brought the first performance from the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 2011 and a return for music director Gustavo Dudamel to the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage. I saw the performance Saturday night, which was odd in many ways right from the beginning when L.A. Phil President Deborah Borda came on stage to announce that the evening’s show was a rehearsal of sorts for the big live concert broadcast scheduled to take place the next day, Jan 9. She warned there would be a brief fanfare before Vanessa Williams, who’d been tapped to host the following day’s broadcast, comes on stage to rehearse her welcome to movie theater audiences. She also pointed out the presence of arguably the most critical players in the Los Angeles Philharmonic during Dudamel’s time with the organization – the cameras. Those devices and their operators are seemingly everywhere when Dudamel is around. The lackluster L.A. Philharmonic season opening gala from October was recently released on DVD, and Dudamel has been everywhere, glad-handing it with Tavis Smiley and Jay Leno in the run up to the orchestra's movie screen debut across North America. If the strategy behind all this has been to sell tickets to live shows, it seems to be working. The Dudamel-led concerts this week and next have been more or less sold out for some time, and I’ve seen more folks in and around Walt Disney Concert Hall groveling for tickets recently than I care to admit.

After Borda’s comments, things got under way, but it was a long and drawn-out evening by any record. The rehearsal of backstage elements for the broadcast apparently dragged out some of the pauses for the in-house audience a little. In fact, the break between the first two pieces on the program ran a few minutes longer than usual, prompting one disgruntled gentleman to shout into the waiting silence, “This is a total disrespect to your audience.” Grumbling ensued and after a moment, a half-hearted attempt at why-are-we-waiting clapping arose, dividing the audience, which had an equal number of shushers. And while I found this impatience unattractive, I can also understand feeling put-off by having the full-price ticket you bought turn out to be for a final dress rehearsal for something else as opposed to an actual seasoned performance.

Of course, in between all of the lights, camera, and action was a concert to be heard. There was some lovely playing throughout, but overall, it was fairly underwhelming. It was easily the most ambitious of the programs the L.A. Philharmonic will include in its live broadcast trio of shows this year, but that isn’t saying much when you consider it included John Adams’ Slonimsky's Earbox, Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. The first half was populated by the two 20th-century American composers that it is now clear Dudamel favors by the frequency with which they’ve crept up in his programming. He’s toured Adam’s recent City Noir around the country, and Slonimsky’s Earbox was an interesting work to start the evening with. Dudamel doesn’t have much of a touch for Adams’ work, but the piece bubbled along nicely despite its sloppiness. The Bernstein/Dudamel connection is much harder for me to fathom. Dudamel's first shot into the limelight was on the back of Bernstein's dances from West Side Story, and the composer's Symphony No. 2 was toured as well last year. But, as a friend of mine commented this week, Bernstein’s music is notable in that it isn’t Copland’s, yet has the distinct disadvantage of not being Ives’. Bernstein’s first symphony, subtitled “Jeremiah”, evokes the world and events of the Old Testament prophet and has some pretty vocal lines for a mezzo in the third movement, sung here nicely by Kelley O’Connor. I can’t say it really connected to me, though, and I wasn't sure what to make of it here.

The evening concluded with the Beethoven, which was what one has come to expect from Dudamel at this point. It did sound well rehearsed on Saturday, but was plagued with histrionic tempi. The first two movements were painfully slow to the point of annoyance. Things eventually picked up speed, but never got much more transparent or precise. In the end Dudamel wrapped up the show with his preferred big flourish. The audience gave their most enthusiastic response of the evening at this point, apparently forgiving any perceived slight from earlier on. They earned an encore, an excerpt from Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 1, played full-throttle and off balance. And then the whole long, exhausting thing was over as we could hear Vanessa Williams over the PA system chattering away backstage about all the excitement that everyone had over the show. Clearly she and the L.A. Philharmonic were going to be prepared for the live cameras rolling tomorrow.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 10/11

In full regalia
Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela
Photo: mine 2007

I had not planned to comment on the second night of the performances from the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela at the Walt Disney Concert Hall under Gustavo Dudamel. After my report on the first night, I figured I’d leave it at that, but it turned out to be such a strange and surreal mix of elements, that I’ve changed my mind. The evening started out with much more promise. Apparently Dudamel got the memo about the volume and overall things were toned down to a much more pleasing level. (To be fair, it appears that many instruments were held up in customs and the orchestra did not get adequate time to rehearse in the space.) The program started with a very spirited Beethoven’s 5th that was hard not to admire. It was one of those big sound productions popular a few decades ago with a beefed up orchestration to make everything sound fuller. I’m no expert in this area, but I’m pretty sure Beethoven didn’t originally call for 5 flutes and 4 oboes. Still the playing was strongly felt. The group got another standing ovation at intermission as love poured from an audience with more than a few expatriate Venezuelans.

The second half focused on Latin American composers – Moncayo’s Huapango, Márquez’ Danzón No. 2, and Ginastera’s Suite from Estancia. The group and Dudamel were clearly having fun and the audience again responded in kind. Dudamel does in fact appear to be the real deal and the performances he elicited from this group of relative youngsters while not perfect was better than much of what you could expect from most professional orchestras these days particularly in terms of energy level. He is among close friends with the SBYOV and the ease of communication shows. It is easy to be swept away with the sheer youthful enthusiasm of the group.

However, it was at this point that things got a little weird. The show ended with a series of encores drenched in spirited patriotism for Venezuela. The house lights dimmed briefly as the musicians donned blazers with the red, yellow and blue of the Venezuelan flag. The crowd became ecstatic and then John Williams (of all people) appeared in his own Venezuela blazer to lead the massive group through the theme from Star Wars. The SBYOV continued through at least two other encores including the Mambo segment from West Side Story. At this point the group stood and swayed and periodically danced around in maneuvers that are standard fare for most high school marching bands as the excitement level grew. As a final encore, Dudamel cajoled his mentor and SBYOV founder José Antonio Abreu onto the stage where he led the orchestra through the Venezuelan national anthem. Some commentators, including Pliable, have noted discomfort with this brand of patriotism from any group but especially concerning in this case given the current political realities in Venezuela. While this very talented group of young people are drawing attention around the world, this very day their peers are under assault with tear gas and rubber bullets for defending democracy in the streets of Caracas. Of course, we Americans can appreciate what it is like to feel pride in one’s homeland even when that place has political leaders who make very poor decisions and are reviled both at home and abroad. Still, I would have to agree that all this flag waving pushes some boundaries. Certainly this is not 1938 and they aren't playing Deutschland über alles, but I can also certainly imagine Mr. Williams growing to regret some of those photos with his on-stage wardrobe a few years down the line.

Still, for now, everyone seems to be able to look the other way and have a good time, an art mastered by Americans. If anyone had any doubt of that, the appearance of Los Angeles’ own progressively more-troubled Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, during the second half should have made that clear. Dudamel and these young players give off many good vibrations and those in need of them are apparently not far from hand. Dudamel has had some big name music mentors including Barenboim, Rattle, and Claudio Abbado, and, if he is wise, he might have leaned in for some words of wisdom from the mayor as well. If these performances indicate anything for Dudamel’s future in LA it may be this – he may be much less likely to face musical difficulties than he is to face political ones. Fair or not, the more of a despot Hugo Chavez becomes and the more his country and the US are at odds, the more pressure he may feel here to take a stand for what he believes in. Dudamel has carefully avoided taking positions on the controversies in his home country in the press while maintaining a necessary amount of contact with the Chavez regime that continues to provide funding for the SBYOV. Dudamel’s biggest challenge here in LA may be remaining publicly neutral in regards to events in his own country. These are tensions felt by many in the expatriate Venezuelan community here, and it may not just be the press that proves unforgiving.

Labels: Dudamel, LA Philharmonic 07/08, SBYOV

Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic at the end of the 2009 Opening Night Gala
Photo: mine 2009

At last, the highly anticipated night was here. Gustavo Dudamel made his debut as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Thursday after months of ridiculous and escalating hype. The press has been so out of control that it led a friend of mine to develop concerns that Dudamel has been horribly constipated considering his bowel movements have been the only facts about him not breathlessly covered in the pages of the Los Angeles Times since his arrival in town a mere eight days ago. But he was clearly in good enough shape to lead the Gala concert as throngs of the tuxedoed and well-heeled including the likes of the Mayor and, if my eyes didn’t deceive me, William Shatner arriving champagne in hand. The inaugural concert program was filled with well-wishes from big money donors and the governator. Even the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors included a resolution they had painstakingly cut-and-pasted from the L.A. Philharmonic’s own press materials, which were also cleverly reproduced word-for-word elsewhere in the program, welcoming the 28-year-old as “one of the most exciting and compelling conductors of our time.” Rolex sponsored the evening, which included posters around the hall of a recent ad with the new maestro air-brushed into a younger, tanner Harry Connick, Jr.


But it was finally time to get down to actually making some music with the world-class orchestra now under Dudamel’s charge, and the young maestro arrived on stage clearly a little nervous from my vantage point, diving right into the world premiere of John Adams’ new commission for the Philharmonic, City Noir, without hardly a pause. It was a rather anti-climactic start, but on the bright side, for those still wondering whether or not Adams could write movie music if he wanted, you finally have you’re affirmative answer. City Noir is the third in a series of orchestral works Adams describes as being based on various periods in California’s history. As the name suggests, Adams took his inspiration from post-WWII Los Angeles and the film noir aura associated with the period. The work also references the American tradition of Jazz-influenced orchestral writing and, while the composer notes he didn’t intend to reference any specific film scores of the period, City Noir ends up sounding like what you’d expect from a classic film noir more than any of Adams’ other recent work. It’s not poorly done. But it’s kind of appalling that in 2009 in a big new commission for the orchestra’s new music director Adams’ can’t come up with anything more to say musically about Los Angeles than what you’d get from watching Chinatown. Is this really all there is to say about L.A. right now?

Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic at the 2009 Opening Night Gala
Photo: mine 2009

Dudamel and the orchestra seemed terribly uncertain and under-rehearsed throughout the Adams’ piece. (I guess eight days isn't quite enough to rehearse two major symphonies and two world premieres. Who knew?) And possible reasons why became clearer once he had started the other work on the evening’s program, Mahler’s First Symphony. Clearly Dudamel and the players had spent a lot of time over the last eight days not devoted to press conferences and photo shoots working very hard on the Mahler. And by that I mean it sounded immensely laborious. Dudamel went out of his way to milk every moment and sound out of the symphony draining it of any sense of whimsy or effortlessness. He can produced exciting crescendos, but he’s going to bust your ass through every moment to get there. This isn’t really a surprise in that Dudamel has already proven his penchant for histrionic, overwrought Mahler here in the past, and the Gala was no different. More bruising than exciting, this was Mahler for those who don’t like much subtlety interfering with their music. But maybe I'm wrong. The performance was videotaped so watch it yourself when the Gala airs on PBS October 21st and judge for yourself.

The evening concluded with a big standing ovation and quite a bit of large silver and purple confetti raining down on the audience. It was not a spectacular concert by any measure. But Dudamel is young and any relationship between a great orchestra and a conductor is going to take time to develop. It was true of Salonen, and such is likely the case with his predecessor. For now, the aisles have been swept and the leftover champagne has been boxed up. Hopefully some of the unnecessary focus on L.A.’s new maestro will cool off and maybe he’ll get the chance to actually develop into what the LA Philharmonic’s own press materials claim that he already is. And that will only take place over many evenings where Dudamel and the orchestra get to do what they do best - just make music.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 09/10

Dudamel, Brewer, and the LA Philharmonic
Photo: mine 2008

Gustavo Dudamel is back in Los Angeles this week, and, after some much publicized appearances with the Israel Philharmonic, he’s back on stage with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for two weeks of shows. Despite what the incessant puff pieces in the Los Angeles Times would have you think, many people here, myself included, have significant reservations about the artistic direction of the organization with this new leadership. I’ve not been overwhelmed by any of Dudamel's stops here either with the L.A. Philharmonic or the insanely overrated Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra. So I attended tonight’s performance with some trepidation. I’m trying to keep an open mind because, like it or not, Dudamel's leadership is something I’m going to have to adjust to. Still, it's a very bitter pill to swallow knowing what we’ve had here in recent years under Esa-Pekka Salonen.

The program included Ligeti’s Atmosphères, Strauss' Four Last Songs sung by Christine Brewer, and Beethoven’s 6th Symphony. The show was enjoyable if not great and is a reminder of two very important points about our music director-elect. First, he can turn the whole “Dudamel approach” off at times. Up until now, Dudamel has taken a big, forceful approach with a hopped-up sound for virtually everything he's led, which while crowd pleasing, grates on the nerves after awhile. Tonight, however, during both the Ligeti and Strauss, the conductor exercised remarkable restraint. However, he had little to substitute for it. The Ligeti was fine - not entirely spooky, but certainly formeless enough to work. Dudamel had exquisite control of the audience holding everyone in dead silence after the completion of the piece for what felt like minutes. The Strauss however fared less well. The orchestra sounded wooden, at times hurriedly paced and robotic. Luckily, Christine Brewer is so amazingly talented that she couldn’t have cared less, rolling over the huge orchestra effortlessly. She was chewing up the back up band and spitting them out. Her beautiful soaring tone rang out, and, while the strings swirled behind her in a pleasing way, it wasn’t quite as sorrowful as it could have been.

The second lesson this evening was that the over-the-top Dudamel approach sometimes works fantastically well with an array of pieces. Take Beethoven for instance. The second half of tonight’s bill was occupied by the 6th symphony which is not typically anyone's idea of a barn burner. But here is was big, looming, and aggressive. It seemed to spring to life with this full robust take on it. These undercooked early romantics seem to fare well in Dudamel’s hands and Beethoven seems to bloom here. I must admit this perforamnce held my attention better than any No.6 in recent memory. So maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel after all.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 08/09

Photo: Andrew Eccles 2009

As you may have noticed, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is currently out of town on a two-week concert tour of the U.S. under musical director Gustavo Dudamel. Of course, there is never any let up from the L.A. Philharmonic’s tireless PR machine that is bombarding us with everything from a new segment on “60 Minutes” to profiles in American Way magazine. The group hit San Francisco, Phoenix, Chicago and Nashville last week to sold-out houses and enthusiastic audiences at every stop. However, given the decidedly mixed reviews the performances have gotten so far, it seems what was billed as a "eat-your-heart-out" tour is provoking more than anticipated indigestion by people who regularly write about classical music.

The reviews have dutifully noted Dudamel’s energy and excitement and the great work he has done with young musicians. But at long last, critics have begun to notice the fact that while his conducting skills are promising, they are still highly underdeveloped, particularly with an orchestra of this caliber. This is not a surprise to me, of course, considering I’ve been saying the same things since 2007 here at outwestarts.com, but now Dudamel’s slip is beginning to show in other cities as well.

In San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Joshua Kosman was “bewildered” by the L.A. Phil performances there:

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....

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.

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,

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....

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.

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.

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....

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.

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.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 09/10

The Los Angeles Philharmonic reached the two-thirds point in the local run of its Mahler cycle, or “Project” for those so inclined, on Thursday. And after some time off for good behavior this week, it was back in the saddle for me. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s Symphony No.6 – the “Tragic” one. Mahler’s subtitle for this symphony of course turned somewhat prophetic for him personally in the year following its premiere, and given music director Gustavo Dudamel’s track record of conducting Mahler’s works, it certainly ran the risk of predicting this evening’s performance quality as well. As the symphony numbers in this series get higher, the works get progressively more challenging in terms of content. Dudamel and the L.A. Philharmonic have been doing fairly well so far in the cycle with solid performances of Symphonies 1, 4, and the Adagio from the 10th. But Dudamel appeared to be running out of steam on Thursday. Certainly not in any physical sense – he appeared hearty and hale as always. But the small cracks in the interpretive façade from earlier on are starting to expand as the cycle goes on.

Dudamel, as is his wont, conducted the score from memory. And things got off to a great start. The strings poured out rich beautiful wound in well coordinated attacks on the two contrasting themes in the early part of the first movement. I was sorry to hear it end and the interruption of late comers clattering in between the first two movements was a disappointing punctuation mark on the music. Dudamel went with the original ordering of the next two movements going on with the Andante moderato which was reserved and frequently lovely. But this is a big siymphony with a lot of angst-ridden themes in it, and Dudamel began to falter on entering the Scherzo. Things turned listless at this point. Not that there wasn’t passionate, committed playing from the orchestra members, but the various elements in the score became increasingly disorganized from one another. This lack of focus and overall direction spilled over into the forth movement which started off sounding uncertain as well. By the time the hammer let lose in the home stretch, things had pulled together rhythmically and again the orchestra’s sails seemed to catch the prevailing winds. But moments of muddiness continued to arise write into the final bars. The symphony ends with diminishing brass ad a large final crescendo that fades into darkness. It’s a profound and tortured moment and an opportunity for the kind of awed silence Dudamel has been cultivating in audiences here. But for some on Thursday he had not sealed the deal, and fervent applause immediately crushed the last bits of sound from the orchestra, a development the maestro looked none to happy about by his facial expression.

And I can certainly sympathize with him on that account. But this was not a performance or an audience that was entirely thrust into rapture by the end, and despite its many charms, continued to serve as a reminder of how much work there is left to do for Dudamel and this orchestra. There’s more Mahler ahead next week so stay tuned.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 11/12

The more things change, the more they stay the same. On Thursday, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and music director Gustavo Dudamel continued their Mahler cycle (or “Project” if you’re prone to marketing jargon) by covering familiar territory. The main course on the program was Mahler’s Symphony No.1, a favorite of Dudamel’s. Ironically, though, it’s not a work that he’s conducted particularly well in its previous outings here at least. Most notably was the symphony on the bill for the gala opening performance of his tenure as music director in Los Angeles, which was preserved on video. As you may recall, it was artistically disastrous, though the PR machine built up around him bowled over any objections from those who were really listening. Two years later the prospect of its return was not inspiring.

But two years is a long time, and Dudamel’s work with the orchestra has clearly started to pay off as evidenced by what was heard on Thursday. It’s by no means a deep or mature interpretation, but it was undoubtedly a reasonable and at turns quite reasonable one. Many of the same mannerisms are still present – the exaggerated tempi, the obsessive focus on maximizing every little detail at the expense of the whole, and so on. Again the first two movements bogged down occasionally over this preoccupation. But these issues were far less pronounced and the sense of motion through the piece was more intact. Of course, many of those small moments sounded wonderful and the third movement came off without any drag. Dudamel can always sell the big finish, and the finale was as heroic as you could wish for.

As the conductor himself noted, this is usually the point at which the concert would end. (And in fact did so during the inexplicably popular “Casual Friday” performance where you pay the same ticket price for less music with a side of chat, but go figure.) But as Dudamel told the audience before leaving the stage, there was more to come in the form of the Adagio from the unfinished Symphony No. 10, the final symphonic piece Mahler completed before his death. This was provided for contrast with Mahler’s earliest symphonic work, and while the idea may have been a little obvious, the execution was something else entirely. The increasingly lush strings of the L.A. Philharmonic poured themselves into this performance with Dudamel delivering what he had promised – a movement that connected Mahler to the musical revolutions of the 20th Century. Here the Wagnerian overtones were crystal clear and the second Viennese school was clearly in sight with a sound bordering on the dissonant and reorganized. The youthful excesses of both the music and the conducting of the first were gone and replaced with something far more cohesive and impressive. I’ll take more of this Dudamel, please. All this raises expectations for the later symphonies Dudamel will conduct with the L.A. Phil including the 6th next weekend and the 9th after that. You’ve got one more chance to hear this tidbit tonight before the Bolivar players take over the show with the 2nd on Sunday.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 11/12

Sofia Gubaidulina’s excellent adventure here in Los Angeles this week didn’t end with the excellent and varied shows performed at REDCAT that wrapped up on Tuesday. In fact, she got one more parting shot, and it was a doozy. This most remarkable of living composers brought her recent orchestra work, Glorious Percussion to the stage of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel. (You can get a taste of the piece above with Dudamel conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in the same work.) Dudamel had a hand in the work’s world premiere, which he conducted in the fall of 2008 with the other orchestra he serves as principal conductor for, the Gothenburg Symphony in Sweden. The work features an ensemble of five percussionists in addition to the regular percussionists of the Los Angeles Philharmonic who play an incredibly large array of instruments from timpani to Javanese gongs and 6 bass drums. Gubaidulina’s love of percussion and particularly ethnic and folk instruments is at the heart of this work that was so inspirational to the five musicians who played the feature roles in the work’s premiere that they took the work’s name as their own in founding a new percussion group. All five of those players were on hand and they, along with the orchestra, brought this immense work raging to life. Like much of Gubaidulina’s sound world, there is darkness and grating edges mixed in with loud dramatic waves of sound. Bass drums come crashing through in unison at times, and at others the bright tinkling of chimes and triangles flutter about like butterflies. The work is divided into distinct sections where groupings of similar percussion instruments are highlighted and often are accompanied by complementary sounds from the orchestra – the chimes run in parallel to the woodwinds and at one point there is an extended dialogue between a bass and a Yoruba talking drum. This is not some pluralistic world percussion tour, however, and Gubaidulina strives to emphasize the central, almost lyrical, role that the sound of the many percussion instruments play in the piece. It’s stirring and sometimes almost scary, like being lost in the forest of Schoenberg’s Erwartung. It was a thrilling performance and a perfect capstone to Gubaidulina’s time in Southern California.

But perhaps an equally shocking event on Thursday came right before the start of Glorious Percussion when Dudamel spoke from the stage. He noted that Brahms’ Tragic Overture scheduled to start the evening had been dropped from the program for time and logistics. But he went on to give a detailed and spirited explanation of how he came across the piece and why the audience should care about it. I know. You could have knocked me over with a feather. This gesture, an everyday occurrence on the WDCH stage just over two years ago, has vanished into the midst of overworked American orchestral classics more recently. This is the first time the L.A. Phil’s current music director, to my knowledge, has given this kind of personal public consideration to a piece of contemporary music since arriving in L.A. Dudamel stated that when he arrived in Gothenburg as principal conductor in 2007, he was asked to conduct a world premiere commission from Gubaidulina. He stated he was apprehensive about this since in “[his] country” it was all about older music such as Mahler, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky. (Of course why anyone at the L.A. Phil thought that hiring someone with this sort of background to replace Salonen was a good idea is still beyond me.) But Dudamel was won over by the music. It’s great that he was willing to step forward and try to involve the audience in something other than the most predictable concert fare imaginable, and I hope he keeps it up even if his heart isn’t completely in it. But at least there was this one shining moment.

The rest of the evening was taken up with a predictable Dudamel take on Brahms’ Symphony No.2 with all of the requisite slow, dragging tempi and the balance and cohesion problems that have continued to plague this Brahms’ series. Let’s hope the L.A. Phil’s young maestro continues to explore his relatively recent discovery of newer music. It might give Brahms and some of Dudamel’s beloved old masters a chance to breath.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 10/11

Thursday brought the opening night of the 2010/2011 Los Angeles Philharmonic season at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It’s the second season under music director Gustavo Dudamel, and while the gala event program was enthusiastically received, it was a decidedly less ambitious evening than the starry first night last year. That evening was a welcome to Dudamel hyped to the rafters and featuring a Mahler symphony (the 1st) and the world premiere of a new work by a major American composer (John Adams’ City Noir). But not every season can go for those heights on opening night, and after the drubbing Dudamel and the orchestra received in the press around the country on their Spring tour, a more standard format for Thursday's occasion was called for with a big star vocalist and crowd-pleasing arias. The star in question on this night was a big one, Juan Diego Flórez, and he did not disappoint, right down to the string of high Cs in “Ah mes amis” in his first encore.

But back to the beginning. The show started a little late, which is not unusual for this kind of event, which was being broadcast on the radio. The first half of the show consisted entirely of Rossini - opera overtures paired with tenor arias. Somewhat comically, a number of people in the audience were thrown off guard by the opening drum roll from the overture to La gazza ladra. Mistaking it for the start of the National Anthem, pockets of people in both the Terrace and Orchestra sections of the auditorium stood up only to realize seconds later that this was not to be one of those more patriotic evenings and some twittering over the confusion ensued. But Flórez was not far behind and he gave exciting excerpts from La Cenerentola and Semiramide. Wisely, Dudamel chose to stay out of the way of the night’s biggest asset and let JDF do his thing. The orchestra sounded a little underrehearsed to me, but with Dudamel busy with the Vienna Philharmonic as recently as last weekend, and a whole other program in store in L.A. for the rest of this one, something is bound to fall through the cracks. (One wonders what shape the Turangalila-symphonie will be in by next weekend on such a schedule.) Sadly the original program was truncated due to time and one of the three Rossini overture/aria pairings was jettisoned, as Dudamel announced from the stage.

After the break, Flórez and Dudamel returned for a number of Latin songs and two short orchestra works, Moncayo’s Huapango and Márquez’ Danzón No. 2. The ever-present “Granada” was on the bill and many in the crowd responded to the well-known songs in this part of the program. Here the orchestra sounded warm, and Dudamel made the most of the dancing rhythms in many of these works. Flórez’ voice seemed a bit drier here in the wake of a bigger and more romantic orchestral sound. He gave the crowd two familiar encores, “Ah mes amis” and “La donna è mobile”, before they were pelted with silver and pink streamers. And with that, another season is underway.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 10/11

Friday brought the opening performance in what the Los Angeles Philharmonic is calling “The Mahler Project.” What the “Project” part is exactly is unclear. What is clear is that over the next five weeks, music director Gustavo Dudamel will lead a complete cycle of the Mahler symphonies first here in Los Angeles and then in Venezuela relying on both the L.A. Philharmonic and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela. Purportedly the event is “extraordinary.” But considering that Mahler symphony cycles are fairly common in modern orchestras (e.g. San Francisco) and that a complete set of the symphonies was performed as recently as 2009 by the Staatskapelle Berlin in 12 days at Carnegie Hall in New York under Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez, “The Mahler Project” doesn’t seem unique in terms of time, content or scope. (New Yorkers also got a performance of Das Lied von der Erde that time around which we in L.A. oddly will not, considering the work’s significance in Mahler’s symphonic output.) But perhaps all this will be new to some local audiences and/or players, which I guess is enough to warrant use of the term. "The Mahler Project" will be extraordinary - the question is simply to whom.

On Friday, the series opened with the Fourth Symphony paired with Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). And while it wasn’t necessarily a world-class performance, it was a undoubtedly a very good and quite enjoyable one. Mahler’s short and early song cycle came first, where Dudamel and the orchestra were joined by baritone Thomas Hampson. Dudamel wisely kept the orchestra mostly out of the way of Hampson’s performance with a light touch. Hampson is certainly a big star with a great voice, but to be honest I found him less than exciting in this overall. In the work’s most intense moments he came to life, showing a little of that fire that makes him so good in Verdi. But some of the higher stretches of Wayfarer's score sounded a bit out of reach for him. He was definitely more of a gleaming knife in the chest kind of guy than a romping over the green fields one.

All of this verdant Romance and heartbreak provided a nice segue to Mahler’s most familiar symphony that kicked off with its sleigh bells and bright melodies. Mahler is one of Dudamel’s favorite composers, but one he has struggled to present here in Los Angeles with any real coherence. This evening was certainly the best performance of any Mahler symphony that he has yet given in the city. The work bubbled with life and excitement around many corners and he seemed in touch with the almost pastoral quality of the piece. Dudamel can sell big moments, and he gave the players free reign to run with huge crescendos. The brass and winds sounded lovely and the strings continue to turn richer and more full-bodied under his leadership. The soprano soloist in the final movement was Miah Persson who delivered a very touching rendition of Mahler’s own text describing a child’s vision of Heaven. She soared above the orchestra with a bright and easy tone bringing the evening to a lovely conclusion.

However, this isn’t to say that the performance wasn’t without its share of problems that kept it decidedly earth-bound. Dudamel continues to have balance issues with the orchestra. The first two movements on Friday were full-bodied and brimming with so much activity and emphasis of competing details that the overall focus could get lost in the cacophony of sound. Things never turned harsh, but they were certainly overworked. Subtlety has still not entered Dudamel’s musical toolbox, but this opening Mahler symphony at least suggested he can keep things from unraveling in these large scale Romantic works. It’s a good, solid start that if he can manage to sustain over the next few weeks, just might make this cycle worth hearing from beginning to end whether it’s extraordinary or not.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 11/12

A friend of mine after hearing Gustavo Dudamel conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic recently asked me “What has happened to this orchestra? I don't know where they are headed anymore.” It’s true, the changes of the Dudamel era are afoot and as much as some critics would like you to believe that any differences in the orchestra between today and a couple of years ago are just a matter of different flavors of the same great stuff, this weekend’s program from Dudamel and the L.A. Philharmonic tells a much more unsettling story. It’s a story of lowered artistic ambitions and the incessant drumbeat of marketing over music. The show that kicked off the weekend was perhaps one of the most questionable programming concepts of the whole season. It included three orchestral “fantasies” by Tchaikovsky based on Shakespeare; Hamlet, The Tempest, and the ever-familiar Romeo and Juliet. Granted it's pretty music, but hardly what you’d call inspiring or thoughtful. It's also a program that is featured on the latest recording from Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra so that the same show has arrived here is no surprise.

To make matters worse, the increasingly star-struck management worked with Dudamel to create the musical equivalent of mutton dressed as lamb. Each of the three orchestra pieces was paired with a short, readily identifiable scene from each play with some bona fide Hollywood stars and all the dramatic lighting you could ask for. Matthew Rhys gave us a bit of the old “To be or not to be” in the requisite unbuttoned collar sans tie which always seems to signify an actor is trying to play the troubled, young Hamlet. Meanwhile Malcolm McDowell channeled both Hamlet’s father and Prospero with the assistance of a script. And in the final segment, Orlando Bloom’s Romeo accosted Anika Noni Rose’s Juliet from across the stage standing in the walkway between the front and middle orchestra sections. Much of the acting, which was directed by Kate Burton, was wooden and the scenes seemed somewhat pointless other than getting a chance to see a star in the flesh. The audience members seated behind the orchestra also got a fair glimpse of Bloom’s exposed midriff as he cavorted in his exhortations of love toward Juliet. And admittedly said midriff just about carried the whole evening which may be the intended effect for a show that will be broadcast to theaters nationwide on Sunday as part of the L.A. Phil Live series.

With so much else going on, it might have been possible to forget there was an orchestra concert going on, but indeed there was. In typical Dudamel fashion, the musical portion of the show was blown up out of proportion to the weight of work itself. The strings dug in and often sounded bright and lovely. There were big swelling moments that were quite dramatic. But there were just as many that were interminably overwrought and slow. It’s hard to imagine how a show with not much more than 60 minutes of music by Tchaikovsky could be so exhausting, but then Dudamel has a way of making even the most unassuming music beg for mercy. The show repeats through Sunday if you're up to it.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 10/11

Dudamel, Simon Trpceski, and the LA Philharmonic
Photo: mine 2008

So I’m back in LA and, while I still have some New York stuff to write about (which I’ll get to later), I rushed back today primarily to hear our beloved LA Philharmonic in the last of this weekend’s shows under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel. These were his first appearances with the full orchestra since the announcement that he will take over the music director’s position here in 2009 after the departure of Esa-Pekka Salonen. It was a big show at least in terms of expectations and if nothing else is clear, the city has already warmly embraced our young new intended music director, if Sunday’s audience was any indication. Even the musicians themselves seem to love him already. So, how come I can't seem to bring myself to jump into the love-fest?

Let me continue to go on record as saying that, while there is plenty to be excited about with Dudamel, I, for one, am still far from won over. This may be more psychological than anything in that he seems to have been given the easiest ride imaginable in the press, which always raises my suspicions. There seems to be an awareness of his shortcomings but they are always presented as somehow charming and youthful. The fawning seems nearly without end.

This weekend’s shows included Esa-Pekka Salonen’s own Insomnia, as well as Prokofiev's first piano concerto played by Simon Trpceski, and Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique. All of the pieces were given enthusiastic and admirable performances, cranked up to full crowd-pleasing mode. There were certainly more of a dynamic range here than with anything played by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra under Dudamel last November. But as enjoyable as this all may have been, it still seems to me that Dudamel has one approach to virtually everything and he’s sticking with it. Everything is taken at its full-bore, juiced-up enthusiastic best. It’s certainly a fun, dramatic, and exciting way to take in the world of music, but one that lacks an amount of subtlety and texture. Salonen’s piece suffered the most under this weight, and while Dudamel’s rendition had much to recommend it in terms of energy and tension, it paled in comparison to Salonen’s own approach to the work which we here in LA have had the benefit of hearing first hand on a number of occasions.

Still, I suppose overly energetic is preferable to dull and lifeless any day. I guess I just wish there seemed to be a little more middle ground here. Dudamel will return for more shows next weekend featuring Debussy and Ravel but it appears that these programs are sold out already as were this weekend's.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 07/08, Music Reviews 07/08

The Los Angeles Philharmonic season has gotten off to a particularly slow start this Fall with five weeks of performances under music director Gustavo Dudamel. Despite two premieres, the shows have featured uninspired programming made worse last week by the cancellation of pianist Yefim Bronfman. Of course, you can still read all of the orchestra’s latest talking points as repeated by the major press organizations in town: Dudamel is a rock star, the orchestra is blowing the roof off of Disney Concert Hall, etc. You can even hear about how Dudamel has won classical music’s equivalent of America’s Got Talent, the Gramophone Artist of the Year Award. But the musical performances have been lacking and the shine of the orchestra’s hot new conductor is starting to fade. Dudamel’s concerts, although still better attended than anything else on the schedule, are no longer certain sell-outs. Or at least there are enough available tickets that somebody felt the need to hire a local social marketing PR firm a few weeks ago to get the word out about all the available tickets for the L.A. Phil shows Dudamel’s been leading this month. Meanwhile inside the concert hall, hype continues to outpace delivered goods at least 2 to 1.

And so it was this weekend with a show the L.A. Phil will take to San Francisco on Sunday featuring an uninspiring performance of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 and a new work from Enrico Chapela –MAGNETAR, a concerto for electric cello and orchestra composed for soloist Johannes Moser. Following the second John Adams’ fanfare this month, Moser arrived on stage with the instrument in question on Friday and talked up Chapela’s music. We were told that unlike so many contemporary composers who write for the future, a stance that as you might guess is purportedly detrimental to music, Chapela writes for today. And if writing for today means writing short-lived, inconsequential music, in this particular case, I suppose he does. The concerto certainly wasn’t serious music. And by serious, I mean good. MAGNETAR starts out with the musicians in the orchestra rubbing their hands together, clapping, and snapping their fingers. All of this probably sounded cool, but you couldn’t hear any of it over the laughter in the audience on Friday. The following three movements were mostly marked by an indifference to the unique musical qualities of the electric instrument. Outside of a few sound effects, there seemed little about the solo part that couldn’t have just as easily been played on a standard cello and probably more clearly heard by the audience. It was also odd that Chapela’s piece seemed oblivious to the significant literature for electronic string instruments including Adams’ own The Dharma at Big Sur, which helped usher in the Walt Disney Concert Hall itself. The concerto was little more than a musical pastiche of jazzy interludes and watered down Led Zeppelin that neither rocked nor sang.

Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 in the second half of the program was stronger, but burdened with Dudamel’s many interpretive foibles. The first movement started out inexplicably slowly and the chronic balance problems soon resurfaced. Major themes were just as likely to be buried under supporting material as not in both the third and fourth movements. And the memory of performances from the Mariinsky Orchestra in Southern California earlier this week emphatically underlined the lack of anything even approaching a Russian sound in the performance. Of course, that’s not really a fair comparison, but there is still a tendency under Dudamel for everyone to be playing his or her little heart out without enough regard to the bigger picture. As discouraging as all this was, there were clearly people who couldn’t get enough of it all on Friday, clapping in any available silent space in the performance giving their own unique touch to the iTunes recording being made that evening. But that may be the price of being America's populist orchestra.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 11/12

It appears that the second week of the LA Philharmonic's national tour under music director Gustavo Dudamel is not being received much better than the first. Despite the dispatch of KUSC staff and the Los Angeles Times' Mark Swed in an effort to provide some damage control, the lukewarm reviews continue to roll in from many quarters.

The New York Times' Anthony Tommasini notes there is a lot of work to be done to get the orchestra back to the level of regard it had on an a national stage even as recently as a year ago,

But part of the job description for a music director at a major American orchestra involves fostering the technical skills of the players and giving assured, fresh performances of works in the central repertory. In this regard, Thursday’s concert was a disappointment....

But Mr. Dudamel has to tend to the technical maintenance of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and may need to spend more time, as the Tchaikovsky performance suggested, immersing himself in the repertory.

The word from Philadelphia and Peter Dobrin was not much better,

Here was a slightly unkempt performance of John Adams' City Noir, a signature piece of this orchestra penned by its own creative chair, and an unremarkable Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6. But classical music was winning friends. Did it matter that many came for something other than the music?

With a rags-to-riches story and a media presence of perhaps unprecedented proportions, Dudamel, as leader of a major orchestra at a relatively young age, represents everything right classical music is doing today. Or wrong.

It depends entirely on what you think the field should be banking on as its future. The most cynical listener figures that the Los Angeles Philharmonic has recalculated aspects of the job once considered ancillary (community relations, education, fund-raising) as primary now, and a winsome persona is more important than revelatory interpretations.

I'd rather think that the Los Angeles board, administration, and players really believe they have a great musical thinker on their hands. But that's not who Dudamel is - not now, at 29, not Wednesday night in Verizon Hall.

As some consolation, at least The Washington Post's Anne Midgette was willing to brush aside the serious problems she acknowledged along with everyone else, by highlighting the excitement and high spirits of an enthusiastic conductor and crowd at a classical music concert.

There's no question that Dudamel is a brilliant talent, but there have always been things to criticize in his approach. He is an instinctive musician, but sometimes seems to conduct for the moment rather than with an eye to the whole work. On Monday, one could find plenty to carp at if one was so inclined: balance issues, shaky entrances, lackluster moments from the brass.

Frankly, though, that didn't matter, because Dudamel and the orchestra also offered one of the most involving and compelling performances of Tchaikovsky's "Pathétique" symphony I've ever heard. This was music played by someone who loves music, someone who had an idea where he was going with the piece. And the orchestra opened its collective heart and went right along with him. Perfect? No. Gorgeous? Yes.

So apparently it doesn't matter if the music is any good or not, as long as your heart is in the right place. After having had to listen to the Dud conduct all season in L.A., I'd take a little more skill and a little less goodwill in a hot second if given the chance. As before, these are only excerpts from the reviews, of course, so I’d encourage you to follow the links to read the whole thing yourself. The good news is that the L.A. Philharmonic will be back home next week to finish off the season. this time under the capable hands of Lionel Bringuier.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 09/10

You can always count on the L.A. Times to get around to some actual arts reporting sooner or later. This weekend brings us this pearl from Mark Swed,

"Gustavo Dudamel-- a.k.a. GD and the Dude -- doesn’t hit town until Wednesay, but the Los Angeles Philharmonic has certainly gone into high promotional gear for its new music director, and the media is taking the bait big time. Though well aware of the risk of overexposure and too-high expectations, we at the L.A. Times are hardly blasé as we examine the Dudamel phenomenon."

Gee, it only took how many years to get around to abandoning their blasé attitude toward Dudamel? While Swed goes on to complain about some of the marketing efforts of the L.A. Phil with regards to Dudamel including a video game and iPod app, he fails to gain any insight into the Times’ and his own participation in this “hoopla” and “nonsense.” He has been all too willing to throw laurels at Dudamel’s feet for performances that have been mediocre just as often as they have been good. But now he warns of the "danger" of putting too much pressure on the new maestro through an abundance of hype and unrealistic expectations. Well physician, heal thyself. It's great Swed is finally taking a serious look at the effect the hype around Dudamel could have on him and the L.A Philharmonic. Here's hoping he can examine some of his own role in creating some of this problematic hype to begin with.

The Gustavo Dudamel hype machine took another notch up this weekend here in Los Angeles. The occasion was the first public availability for tickets to the most inexplicably anticipated non-event since the Michael Jackson funeral – a single show at the Hollywood Bowl welcoming Dudamel as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The program which is entitled “Bienvenido Gustavo!” scheduled for October 3rd will conclude with a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony preceded by several hours of community youth orchestras playing god-knows-what with a smattering of local music celebrities like Flea, Herbie Hancock, and David Hidalgo. If the thought of Dudamel’s wildly hit-or-miss conducting abilities don’t make you wince, the very notion of the sheer amount of pandering and filler to be suffered through under that hot afternoon sun definitely should.

But still there were apparently thousands of people both in person, on the phone, and on line looking for the free tickets Saturday morning and afternoon. And we’re told by the Los Angeles Times that very many of these people walked away empty handed and frustrated. Of course, the L.A. Times has played one of the larger roles in generating all of this hype to begin with. With its near total lack of any critical ear or thought about Dudamel’s actual performance track record to date, the paper has glorified a very young and talented man whose actual achievements have been variable and lackluster at best. (Things can change quickly with a little age, and if you don't believe me, just ask Daniel Harding.) Of Dudamel's several performances in Los Angeles with both the L.A. Philharmonic as well as other ensembles, his approach is more often promising than it is fulfilling.

Still, what’s left of our local news outlet is milking every last smile and tear it can from all this much ado about nothing. While the L.A. Times hasn’t missed a beat in covering the changing banner that hangs on the outside of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, it has failed to point out that in fact, the Philharmonic made tickets available to supporters of the organization weeks and weeks ago for a minimum generous donation of around $1500 each as I recall. (I threw the mailer away long ago, but that should be the right figure if my memory serves me.) Apparently the people’s maestro can still be had first and foremost by the folks with the deepest pockets. There’s already a second market for the tickets on line, for those of you who just can’t get enough of whatever it is you’re supposed to want this week. But if you’re feeling disappointed about missing out on tickets, take my advice. There’s about a million things you could do in October for free or otherwise that will be more rewarding than this media stunt. Read a book, take a nap, or better yet join me at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for the Thomas Hampson recital being sponsored by the Los Angeles Opera that day. As for Dudamel, he may one day be worth getting this excited about, but today is not that day.

Labels: LA Philharmonic

From Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire

There was more unbinding of Brahms to attend to on Thursday with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under music director Gustavo Dudamel. But before getting down to that Herculean labor, there was some newer music to attend to: the West Coast Premiere of Steven Mackey’s Beautiful Passing. One of the few premieres originally scheduled as part of the the L.A. Phil’s "Brahms Unbound" series that has actually arrived as planned, Beautiful Passing is a single movement violin concerto composed for Leila Josefowicz who performed it on Friday. (Mackey's work, like Gubaidulina's Glorious Percussion on tap for next weekend, both had their world premieres elsewhere previously decreasing the likelihood of derailment here by events tragic or otherwise.) Beautiful Passing mines traditional soloist vs. orchestra concerto dynamics with the violin playing material in opposition to the orchestra in the first part of the score. The solo violin's more meditative lines are repeatedly interrupted by brash and sometimes comical outbursts from the orchestra. Tennis balls crash against the timpani and Josefowicz played along looking almost irritated by these goings on. After a short cadenza, the order of things changed with the violin now puckishly calling the shots and everyone working together until a peaceful resolution is achieved. Score one for the soloist. I liked the spirit of Beautiful Passing despite Mackey’s tendencies toward sentimentality and its familiar dynamic. Of course, writing music for Josefowicz is always an excellent idea considering her ability to make even the most obvious of gestures seem brilliant and inspired. She made the piece and as usual was great to watch.

Then came Brahms’ German Requiem, which on this evening enlisted the considerable talents of the Los Angeles Master Chorale and soloists Christine Schäfer and Matthias Goerne. This is perhaps one of the thorniest and most difficult to like works Brahms produced. Although it has its advocates, Schoenberg among them, there's a parallel historical litany of great figures who’ve disparaged the work as well, including some of those who generally favored Brahms’ music. There is undoubtedly some wonderful music in it that argues against what George Bernard Shaw saw as an “intolerable tedium” and in the right hands it can shine. Those hands do not belong to Gustavo Dudamel at this point in time. If Shaw was looking for evidence to support his assessment of Brahms’ requiem, Dudamel delivered it in spades. Bloated and laborious, beautiful passages in the score were often left to drift on a sea of dross. Granted Dudamel could produce some lovely Individual moments. The performance certainly had more edges to it than the one given by the Dresden Staatskapelle last fall in New York under Daniel Harding which sank under the impervious sheen of its highly polished but emotionless playing. It almost goes without saying though that the L.A. Phil performance under Dudamel stretched out to ridiculous proportions clocking in at 79 minutes. But worse than any tempo issue, was Dudamel's loss of the bigger picture. There was little of the promised consolation for the living in this performance of Brahms’ uniquely humanistic mass for the dead. The evening often seemed to be running in any number of different directions at once with its rough groupings of big climaxes here and overworked detail there.

There were some saving graces, however. The Los Angeles Master Chorale sounded superb. They are on the go for this whole evening from beginning to end and they never let their energy flag regardless with what was going on around them. And then there is Matthias Goerne. He was devastatingly good with his burnished tone and ease of delivery. He suddenly injected real emotion and drama into the evening every time he stood, pointing the way to the balm Brahms had in mind in the works composition. Frankly he was so good that his appearance alone makes the evening worthwhile. Not everything rose to his level in the performance, but there were moments it came close. So, go prepared to be amazed even if the experience on the whole is at turns brutal and exhausting. The show repeats through Sunday.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 10/11

Of course, the big news today is that the Los Angeles Philharmonic is jumping into the live broadcast business that so many other performing arts organizations have hurled themselves into in recent years. Ever since the Metropolitan Opera’s “Live in HD” series first brought complete opera broadcasts to one’s local Cineplex, opera and theater organizations around the world have been quick to follow suit in equal or lesser ways. Now the L.A. Philharmonic intends to jump into the fray with "L.A. Phil Live" to take a “major step in establishing a national brand for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel” as L.A. Philharmonic president Deborah Borda was quoted in the Los Angeles Times. Funny, and here I thought it was about playing great music superbly. I suspect the brand they have in mind is something like Rolls Royce, but these days with Dudamel in charge it runs the risk of being Dodge.

The three Dudamel-led shows will all be Sunday matinees and will include perhaps the most banal programming on this season’s L.A. Phil schedule. The January 9 show includes John Adams’ Slonimsky’s Earbox, Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. March 13 will bring an all-Tchaikovsky program of works based on Shakespeare and the final broadcast on June 5 will be Brahms and more Brahms, with a double concerto for violin and cello and his Symphony No. 4. This last program was originally scheduled to include the world premiere of Gorecki’s Symphony No. 4 that has been postponed due to reports that the work will not be ready on time. Tickets for the theater broadcasts will range between 18 and 22 dollars depending on where you live and the L.A. Philharmonic organization reports the shows will feature extras including behind the scenes access and rehearsal footage.

I suppose the good news given the underwhelming musical track record Dudamel has established here in L.A. so far, is that there will apparently be enough rehearsal to actually get some footage to begin with. As the Orange County Register’s Tim Mangan recently pointed out, Dudamel hasn’t really been around enough yet to develop much of a sound with the orchestra and performances under his guidance this season, like last, have been wanting in the rehearsal time department. But who knows? Maybe people across America are eagerly awaiting this opportunity for “establishing a national brand” on a late Sunday afternoon. Or as Deborah Borda notes in her video on the L.A. Phil website for the broadcasts, Dudamel “has somehow set a fire throughout the United States, and, of course, in Los Angeles, about the meaning of music and the message of its humanity and what it can bring.” And if you have any idea how run-of-the-mill and likely under-rehearsed Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Brahms will achieve that, please don't keep it a secret. Godspeed to the L.A. Phil on their theater broadcast venture. I suspect they’ll need it. But by all means, don't take my word for it, check out the broadcasts yourself and come back sometime and tell me what you think.

Labels: LA Philharmonic 10/11