{"id":16681,"date":"2014-03-21T06:36:42","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T10:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=16681"},"modified":"2014-04-11T20:28:48","modified_gmt":"2014-04-12T00:28:48","slug":"dudamel-and-gilbert-score","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=16681","title":{"rendered":"Dudamel and Gilbert Score"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sedgwick Clark<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard nearly every one of Gustavo Dudamel\u2019s New York concerts. At first I had my quibbles, but I always walked out of the hall with a smile. His music-making made me feel good to be alive. <\/span><\/p>\n

In two concerts at Avery Fisher Hall this past weekend, his Los Angeles Philharmonic played better for him than ever. The strings had greater strength and unanimity, and the conductor unerringly balanced cross rhythms and accompaniment figures in the winds and brass to keep textures moving. The solo horn, Andrew Bain, played with eloquence and warmth in his many solos, and Joseph Pereira, a student of the New York Philharmonic\u2019s late, great timpanist Roland Kohloff, provided dynamism and rhythmic punctuation to passages that in other hands too often turn soggy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leading off the LA\u2019s first concert was John Corigliano\u2019s 1988 Symphony No. 1. While not exactly new, its brand of dissonant tonality fits well into today\u2019s current style. It memorializes three of the composer\u2019s friends who succumbed to AIDS and received a slashing, uncompromising performance. It should be played every year. Dudamel\u2019s commitment to contemporary composers is genuine, and he programs new works on nearly all his LA programs. After intermission came Tchaikovsky\u2019s Fifth Symphony. I never thought I could love it again, but Dudamel proved me wrong. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the second concert, wispy, little Yuja Wang played Rachmaninoff\u2019s Third Piano Concerto with her usual mind-boggling virtuosity, and she played it uncut, as is usual these days. A curious line on the program page said, \u201cMs. Wang will perform cadenzas by Rachmaninoff.\u201d Well, of course. But which of the two he composed for the first movement did she play\u2014the lighter, rather mercurial one favored by the composer in his recording or the heavy, chordal alternative? Wang chose the first, lighter version. Dudamel\u2019s accompaniment in the Rachmaninoff was ideal, sticking to her fleet fingerwork like flypaper through every pi\u00f9 vivo <\/i>and meno mosso<\/i>. Composers usually know best, and I\u2019ve always wondered if all the pianists who indulge in ostentatious \u201cexpressive\u201d emphases, rubati, ritards, etc. did so because they couldn\u2019t play the piece as written, in tempo\u2014but Wang can and did, and the performance built naturally, with no eccentricities.<\/span><\/p>\n

After intermission, Dudamel conducted an affectionate Brahms\u2019s Second Symphony, which in its moderately brisk tempos and lovely singing lines reminded me of the 1945 San Francisco recording by Pierre Monteux, which is how I came to know the work on my parents\u2019 78s. Dudamel even allowed himself a few subtle tenuto<\/i>s, which he will probably expunge as time goes by but which made me smile on each appearance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alan Gilbert\u2019s Nielsen \u201cInextinguishable\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic are in the process of recording the symphony cycle of Denmark\u2019s greatest composer, Carl Nielsen (1865-1931), for the Danish label, DaCapo. So far only one CD, recorded in concert and containing the Second and Third symphonies, has been released, but last week the orchestra performed an all-Nielsen concert that will constitute the second CD: Helios Overture<\/i>, Op. 17; Symphony No. 1, Op. 7; Symphony No. 4 (\u201cThe Inextinguishable\u201d), Op. 29. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to beat Nielsen\u2019s Fourth for concert hall drama, with its dueling timpani placed on either sides of the orchestra. This was Gilbert\u2019s and the orchestra\u2019s finest Nielsen performance so far, on Friday afternoon, March 14. Clearly this was a master \u201ctake,\u201d and the conductor could take chances on Saturday evening\u2014such as when Nielsen indicates \u201cGlorioso\u201d twice in the score, and Gilbert\u2019s response struck me as cautious.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leonard Bernstein placed the timpani on the front of the stage when he performed the symphony with the Philharmonic in 1970, but it was disappointingly ponderous interpretively and thin sonically on LP. The CD remix vastly improved the sound, but it still couldn\u2019t compete with the supercharged Martinon\/Chicago recording on RCA. Gilbert followed the composer in placing the timp at the back of the stage. Mike placement will take care of any recording concerns. I feel secure in predicting that the Gilbert will be considered one of the best Fourths upon its release.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gilbert\u2019s performance of the First Symphony, however, seemed less certain\u2014perhaps like the composer, who took four years to write it. Gilbert links the symphony to Brahms, but I hear Bruckner in the final movement.<\/span><\/p>\n

The third CD, to be recorded at the October 1-3 concerts in the fall, will include Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 6, presumably to be released by the anniversary of the composer\u2019s 150th birthday in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking forward<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

My week\u2019s scheduled concerts (8:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted): <\/span><\/p>\n

3\/26 Zankel Hall at 7:30. Ensemble ACJW. Ives: The Unanswered Question. <\/i>John Adams: Shaker Loops<\/i>. David Lang: pierced<\/i>. Copland: Appalachian Spring<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

3\/27 Avery Fisher Hall at 7:30. New York Philharmonic\/Gustavo Dudamel. Vivier: Orion<\/i>. Bruckner: Symphony No. 9.<\/span><\/p>\n