Dudamel, L.A. Philharmonic's relationship growing
REVIEW | Los Angeles Philharmonic at Orchestra Hall
Chicago Sun-Times, Sunday May 16, 2010
BY ANDREW PATNER
There’s no question that, hype or no hype, Gustavo Dudamel, the 29-year-old conducting sensation from Venezuela, is a major ambassador for classical music in this still new century. Crowds cheer him, young people recognize him, he attracts new audiences and he inspires aspiring musicians.
But his first national tour as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic still leaves some questions unanswered and even raises some new ones.
Friday night at Orchestra Hall, Chicago audiences – who have seen and heard Dudamel with his own Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and with the players in training from the Civic Orchestra and Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra – had their first evening with the conductor and the orchestra he took over just seven months ago.
New relationships take time to develop – think not just of the first months, but the first seasons, plural, of Daniel Barenboim’s years in Chicago – as do careers. And a single concert – Chicago got only one of the two programs on this current tour – is rarely definitive. Much of what happened on Friday before a long sold-out hall, however, can be seen in the context of other performances over recent years.
There is no doubt that Dudamel lives in music and that he is highly intelligent and articulate about both music and life, not any sort of a limited prodigy. He works hard with scores and in rehearsals and his showier podium moves are natural expressions of his passions and ideas, not mere calculation. He creates an excitement in a hall and on stage that happens only with people with real charisma.
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.
The Phil’s commissioned 2009 John Adams score, City Noir, a 35-minute tribute to Los Angeles and its mid-20th century movie culture, confirmed that both Dudamel and the Philharmonic have their technical chops: It’s a matter of how they use them in repertoire works. As with any Adams score, the orchestration and rhythmic instructions are detailed and smooth. Adams is interested in execution, not interpretation. A little of this blinking-neon, plaintive saxophone solo stuff goes a very long way, alas. What could be a terrific eight or ten-minute overture drags and sags and repeats itself.
But you could certainly hear that the orchestra left by Dudamel’s predecessor Esa-Pekka Salonen, has strong individuals and sections, albeit with a troubling lack of coherence across the otherwise fine winds. And the positive side of the freedom Dudamel gives his players includes a physicality and even swaying associated more with Latin and Italian ensembles.
In addition to the too-Hollywood style Puccini, Dudamel also led a high-octane encore of the “Waltz” from Leonard Bernstein’s 1980 Divertimento and left the cheering crowd wanting more. When this hugely gifted young man first emerged on the world scene, one of his mentors, Barenboim, observed, “Everything that cannot be learned, he already knows.” Let’s hope that Dudamel can really learn those more technical and seemingly mundane parts of the conductor’s craft. Music needs him and he continues to hold great promise for the long term.
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