Customer Reviews

Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic: The Inaugural Concert

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I watched this performance October 21, 2009 over KCET, the local PBS station, and found the video and audio both excellent. Well .... maybe the audio will be a little better balanced when the DVD is released. (Having played in an orchestra, I have my own ideas of how recordings should sound.)

The first work was John Adams' "City Noir", a very complex work which is very difficult to play, and probably quite foreign to most people's musical experience. The orchestra was up to the challenge, and Dudamel had certainly mastered the score. Don't expect to fall in love with this piece the first time you hear it! However, repeated hearings should reveal more and more of the inner voices, and I look forward to hearing it again.

The second work was Gustave Mahler's Symphony #1, for which Dudamel has a special affinity and love. Any Mahler lover (yes, I'm one) will have heard many different performances already. This one is unusual -- it is over the top. Dudamel brings some new insights, and stirs the orchestra to a fever pitch at the right moments. And he's not afraid of slow tempos when they're appropriate. This is a very exciting performance, and in my opinion, true to Mahler's intentions. I place it second to none -- it's at the top of the heap of recorded performances for this masterpiece. I just hope he records the other Mahler works on DVD!

On the basis of this one evening of watching him and listening to the results, I placed orders on Amazon for several other DVDs with Dudamel conducting. I don't think he's a flash in the pan. I believe he will be one of the great conductors of the 21st century, and I feel fortunate to live in LA, where I'll be able to see him and the orchestra live.

I've just seen and heard via local public TV (PBS: Great Performances) the Mahler First Symphony in D Major played by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of their new music director, Gustavo Dudamel, in his inaugural concert. Clearly, the Philharmonic saw this as an historic event: it chose to perform the Mahler Symphony in the 100th anniversary year of its first US performance (December 1909, New York Philharmonic, Mahler conducting). For me, however, there was a bit of skepticism. Having heard some hyperventilated ballyhoo about Mr. Dudamel and having also read a few less favorable assessments of his orchestral leadership, I began listening with the queasy feeling I was about to be let down.

It wasn't long, though, before I was quite deeply under the spell woven by Mahler, the Phil, and Mr. Dudamel. As time went on I became ever more impressed with the whole musical experience. To be sure, it wasn't the easiest show to put on. Mahler was a composer of more than usual complexity and rife with internal conflicts, such that even the most seasoned interpreter might very well go astray. How then should such a young conductor (28), still new to his orchestra, pull off this demanding feat? And yet he did, I believe, from the opening pseudo-pastorale, through the scherzo-cum-ländler and the mock funeral march, and on to the powerful finale wherein the whole French horn section--obedient to Mahler's instruction--stood up to blare out their triumphal message. (I counted only five of the seven horns the score calls for; perhaps two were offstage.)

With Mahler, it turns out, nothing is quite what it seems to be. Even the cuckoo in the first movement gets his notes wrong, singing a fourth instead of a third, and in a most insistent way. The second movement, called a scherzo, seems at times to be almost a typical Austrian ländler (country dance)--but with a less-than-dancelike trio. The "funeral march" seems to begin with some solemnity, but its tune is a children's round (Bruder Martin) soon offset with klezmerlike popular dance motifs. Not until the last part of the last movement do all these centrifugal elements become subsumed in a grand reconciliation in the original D Major tonality not heard since the beginning. The beauty, lushness, and exquisite polish of Mahler's music are traps for the unwary, the sublime masking the ridiculous. Not until Shostakovich does such a brilliant symphonic satirist and parodist appear again, I suspect.

Mr. Dudamel, born to musical parents in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, on January 26, 1981, got an early start in "the system," through which young Venezuelans--otherwise perhaps tempted into less savory pastimes--are given musical instruction and thus inducted into constructive activities in wholesome social groups. Dudamel joined one such group--the Simón Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra--as a violinist and became its conductor at age 18). Later he conducted that orchestra in a performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony now available as a CD on this website. In 2004 he won the Mahler Conducting Competition in Germany, which accompanies a good number of other honors and awards to his credit.

Dudamel seems to have good rapport with the LA Phil: he treats the players--several greatly his senior--with respect and appreciation, and they seem to respond in the same terms. His joy and enthusiasm for music-making seem to be contagious, widely infecting the talented players of the Phil, who outdid themselves in brilliance and polish throughout this inaugural performance, which Dudamel conducted without a score, but with confidence, conviction, sensitivity, and dynamism.

The resulting performance was surely a success for all. I found it fully enjoyable, interesting, exciting, and musically satisfying, with nothing noticeably amiss or lacking. Indeed, I don't believe I've ever heard the Mahler First sounding so fresh and coherent before. Hooray!

It looks like the beginning of a beautiful relationship between Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic, one which will bless music-lovers not only in the City of Angels, but everywhere!

I recommend the Mahler First with enthusiasm. (Not having heard the other items in this concert, I'll have to remain tacit on them.)

A note to L. Crist and a thank you for his insights. I am a double bassist and also teach the instrument. So I can share your point of view. I am also a Mahler addict. The performance was electrifying, and this young man brought out portions of the Mahler 1 that I didn't even know where there. As often as I've heard this symphony, the young maestro's approach was so intense, so passionate, and so obviously carefully studied that it was as if I were hearing this masterpiece for the first time. I also agree that the sound engineering at the time of live recording leaves much to be desired, and I hope that over the next 2 months before the DVD is released (I've already gotten my name in for a copy) an "orchestra savvy" engineer will take over the controls.

Are we looking at a future Bernstein?

I don't mean to sound a cautionary note here, but Esa-Pekka Salonen wasn't exactly chopped liver either. Like Dudamel, he excels at music that is highly rhythmic and colorful. He also recorded a very fine Mahler 3rd symphony for Sony Classical, and that was without the benefit of either Royce Hall (UCLA) or Disney Hall. Instead, it was recorded in the rather dry acoustics of Dorothy Chandler. His other two Mahler recordings - Mahler 4 and "Das Lied von der Erde" - weren't quite up to that same level, but they were decent enough. He's also one heck of a good composer. In fact, I must say that I enjoy Salonen's own orchestral works more than the newly commissioned work that opens this concert: John Adam's "City Noir".

"City Noir" is a decent enough work - one that plays up to the strengths of the L.A. Phil. (who are nearly unrivaled in the execution of modern works). But it easily could have been chopped down to just its best movement, which was the third and final one. Like so many contemporary composers, Adams is a marvelous orchestrator, but truly lacks any kind of melodic profile. It's easy for tedium to set in, simply because there are so few reference points along the way (or musical buoy markers). It's for that reason that I recommend just doing the third movement in future performances (it would make a great, short opener before doing other works that are highly rhythmic, and also use tons of percussion).

The Mahler 1st is a solid enough performance too, but I really prefer another DVD of it: the one on Euroarts, with Fabio Luisi leading the wonderful Staatskapelle Dresden. To me, it sounds as though Dudamel has lived with the Mahler a bit too long, and loves this piece perhaps just a bit too much for its own good. I would like to have heard a bit more "freshness", and more willingness to the let the music speak for itself.

For example, I can't say that Dudamel's lumbering tempo for the first movement's main melody - borrowed from Mahler's own "Ging heute morgen ubers feld" (the first of the "Songs Of A Wayfahrer") - is somehow an improvement over what we normally hear. It forces him to make a massive speed-up at the end of each of those two sections (assuming that one is doing the exposition repeat). Thus, it sounds a tad contrived. The same holds true for the start of the scherzo.

I appreciate that Mr. Dudamel is willing to take the scherzo at a heavier, more lumbering gait. But do we really need him to start ultra-slow, then speed up, each and every time the scherzo starts over? Making that effect just the very first time, would have gotten his point across perfectly fine. Also, it's here in the scherzo that Dudamel's biggest interpretive "tick" comes to the surface: his constant slashing at every accent and big downbeat that rolls his way. It sounds over done. In that sense, he reminds me a bit of Solti and Bernstein, which may to be some people's liking (and I do like those two conductors, but for numerous other reasons).

Fortunately, things go more smoothly - less interpretive distractions, shall we say - in the final two movements. That stated, the final chords of the symphony certainly could have used more from the ongoing bass drum roll supporting everything from underneath. Where was it?

Still, this is an auspicious start to a new partnership that's dangerously bordering on being over-hyped by the media, and everyone else. Let's give the Dudamel/L.A. "thang" a bit more time to season. Meanwhile, let's not forget the solid contributions that Salonen made to this great institution, not least of which was the "pushing" for Disney Hall itself. If you're in this for the Mahler, I'd say stick to other tried-and-true, classic renditions. On DVD, I really like the Luisi/Dresden one (Euroarts, I think). Luisi displays more willingness to let Mahler's music speak for itself, combined with a more "rustic" sound quality from the Dresden orchestra.

I was at Disney Hall in October 2009 to see Gustavo Dudamel conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic in one of their four performances of Mahler's symphony 1. My impression then was that Gustavo had passed the Mahler test with flying colors. I love Mahler's 10 symphonies, and I've heard numerous performances of each over the years. The Los Angeles Philharmonic led by Dudamel gives us a thrilling Mahler 1st, and it's perfectly captured on DVD. For those who watched this performance on PBS, you really haven't heard it yet; Deutsche Grammophon has done a masterful job of approximating the dynamic range of Disney Hall's magnificient acoustic, and the performance is even better than I remember. Disney Hall looks and sounds absolutely beautiful here. I'm glad that this concert began with the world premiere of John Adams' City Noir, because the legacy of the L.A. Philharmonic's previous director Esa-Pekka Salonen, is that worthy new works by living composers deserve to be on the program with great works from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. That's standard practice at Disney Hall.

The Mahler performance is good. But will it be so good twenty years from now? Is this really a version that can supplant Kubelik, or, God forbid, Bruno Walter? Frankly, I thought there were moments that were somewhat shallow, where key details were buried beneath the romantic flow. And the sound is stunningly lacking in nuance.

As for the L.A. Philharmonic, they sounded infinitely better when Maazel conducted them in Sibelius 2nd in January. On this Mahler DG live recording the strings sound thin. Fault of the recording? I don't know.

I'm a subscriber to the L.A. I've been knocked out by Dudamel a few times already. I expect great things. But let's not lose our reason over this.

This is rated 5 for performance, 3 for sound.

All in all, this is a terrfic interpretation of the Mahler 1st, lushly and thrillingly played by the LA Phil, which is long overdue its deserved recognition.

However, DG seems intent on bringing us Maestro Dudamel largely through the medium of recorded live performances. While that does cut the budget nicely, it can result in less than ideal quality of sound, which is the case here. On the positive side, the engineers turn up the volume during the quiet and slow sections, letting us hear details that are missing in typical symphonic recordings. And the excessive reverberation provides a wonderfully warm patina over the entire performance.

On the negative side, the reverb is way overdone. Brasses have an "otherwordly" sound to them like something out of Hearts of Space. Lower frequencies are reproduced not as the musical sound of drums and bass fiddles, but as some sort of generic rumble,like the sound of a passing subway train or railroad car.

Much of the excitement that Maestro Dudamel is so clearly trying to establish is blunted by the tendency of the engineers to turn the volume way down during the louder and faster sections, particularly at the end of the first movement. In the video we see the conductor clearly signal "forte" (louder) and we see the musicians digging in. However, the sound on the recording actually gets quieter at that point. It is hoped that DG will provide better sound quality for the remaining recordings in Maestro Dudamel's Mahler cycle.

If you are a Dudamel fan, this DVD provides a solid momento of an auspicious occassion. However, it does not replace Bernstein (Sony) or Walter (Sony) or Leinsdorf (London Phase 4 LP) as my favorite recordings of Mahler's magnificent symphony.

Of course I am reviewing this item before it is released, because I was able to listen to the performance live, and watch it on television on Great Performances.

The PBS broadcast was spoiled by terrible compression artifacts in the video, plus annoying audio dropouts, pops and clicks. I am looking forward to this DG release so that we can re-live this performance for years to come without these distracting flaws.

Dudamel's interpretation of the Mahler was detailed, exceptionally well prepared, and exciting. Every nuance came through, every melody was clearly heard, and the orchestral balance was flawless.

Truly a triumphant premier performance by an impressive young conductor.

I have nothing to say about the Adams piece, it had no attraction for me.

The Mahler is what I paid for, having seen the television broadcast. This is a crucial piece of music for me in my life, I have heard dozens if not over 100 performances of this piece.

The tempos are undeniably slow, my touchstone is the Bruno Walter performance with the Columbia orchestra. While this is not terribly annoying (esp to anyone who has listened to Klemperer and understood what he was doing), the opening is not well-served by this approach, the arch of the music, especially when we arrive at the horn duets, seems to get lost. However, in the later sections, the seeming exaggeration is what Mahler wrote in the score, the true portamenti are exactly what Mahler wanted, these are often miscalled glissandi, but these swoops in strings and winds are usually downplayed by 21st c conductors. This was part and parcel with the blend of Viennese, Bohemian, and Jewish root music that was in Mahler's mental universe, and they should not be denied. Dudamel wrings every last bit out of the orchestra, and if the pace were little more brisk, this would be the best-realized performance since Walter's. As it is, the playing and recording are so good for a live performance, that I would recommend even with the caveat.

Mahler, symphony 1

Gustavo Dudamel conducted the Mahler symphony slower than anyone I've heard since Klaus Tennstedt's Chicago performance in 1991. I don't put great importance on the speed of a performance, but this was slow, almost to the point of worrying me that it would stumble (langsam aber nicht schleppen as Mahler frequently warned).

Then, a bit to my surprise, I started to hear things I had not fixed on in other recordings of Mahler's First: the slower pace seemed to accentuate the waltz-like (Laendler) aspects, especially in the third movement.

Dudamel's conducting style sometimes reminded me of Bernard Haitink--with a certain degree of "jerkiness." But his enthusiasm, bouncing, and passion for the music was reminiscent of Lenny Bernstein.

It was an enjoyable performance, and I plan to revisit it in the future.

Adams, City Noir

Where the Mahler Titan felt like a slow, at times dancing walk through the forest, City Noir seemed a fast nighttime taxi ride through the city. There were many passing images, but they were too fleeting to make out what they were. Sometimes the music sounded like a movie soundtrack (especially "detective movies" of the forties and fifties) but without discernable melodies or harmonies, and pursued by a constant feeling of nervousness.

The third movement brought to mind Arthur Honneger's Pacific 231, but Adams' locomotive had trouble moving down the tracks.

Now, for balance it should be remembered that Mahler's music was at first disliked by many critics and audiences simply because it was too different from what they had been accustomed to. People a century ago simply expected music to behave along the lines of exposition, development, and recapitulation. Perhaps much as Mahler's music did not "behave as expected," John Adams' music is hard for us to appreciate. To me, it felt like a nighttime hurried taxi ride through the city, but maybe I'm just not ready for it yet.