Well, that was disappointing, and in some ways also dismaying: the widely-praised music director of a major symphony orchestra, who is also the incoming music director of a major opera company, going rather badly wrong with both Mozart and Mahler. As Joshua Kosman says, everything he did must have been a deliberate choice of some kind; to my ear, on some level Dudamel really doesn't have an organic feel for what Mahler requires. Not that Mozart is easy to conduct; quite the contrary!
Something that neither of us mentioned: he conducted both works from memory. That's...extremely impressive, given the length and complexity of the Mahler.
I had not heard Dudamel live before; the conductors I've heard at the LA Phil in the past were John Adams (conducting Nixon in China), Susanna Mälkki, Pierre Boulez, and, of course, Esa-Pekka Salonen. If you've heard Dudamel on a regular basis, please leave comments about repertory that you've liked him in.
- Dudamania, at SF Civic Center, by Michael Strickland
- Gustavo Dudamel Bewilders, by Joshua Kosman, SF Chron
You want somebody to defend Dudamel, it'll have to be me. I've enjoyed his work since I first heard him conducting the Venezuelan students in 2007.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't there last week (Mahler 5 being so much not my thing), and I didn't hear him conduct Mahler's First in 2010, as Strickland and Kosman did, but I did hear him do so in 2019 (LAP at Disney), and while the sound quality was often weird and harsh, that served the thrusting interpretation, which eschewed the odd and drastic tempo modifications I'd heard in recordings of his earlier outings. I was satisfied with that, but not with the John Adams piano concerto that came with, which devolved into a lot of clanging noise, Yuja Wang as soloist or no Yuja Wang. Not sure how much of that was Dudamel's fault, how much Adams's, how much mine for not being receptive enough.
I was also greatly impressed with Dudamel's Bernstein Mass (also at Disney, 2018), especially because he treated it not as a potpourri of contrasting styles but as an integrated work of motivic-based structure, rather as if it were a successor to Wagnerian opera. In sonic style it was modernist; less fun to listen to than other performances, but it brought out Bernstein's profundity as a composer, a proposition badly needing a champion.
I was less wild about the LAP's visit to Davies for the SFS centennial in 2011. Prokofiev's Fifth felt underpowered.
Belated thanks for this report!
ReplyDeleteOdd about the sound quality at WDCH. I would think he'd know how to read the hall and adjust the orchestra sound accordingly, or maybe that's what he wanted. The orchestra has almost always sounded gorgeous there, in my experience.
"Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?" will be here soon, with E-PS and Víkingur Ólafsson, last orchestral program of the season, so I'll see what I think.
I'm sure it was deliberate. Klaus Mäkelä got some weird sounds out of the winds in Shostakovich 10 at Davies last night, and that was definitely deliberate: crisp crescendo instead of decay at the end of a held note, that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteI live in LA and am not a fan of Dudamel. I've liked his Mahler 9, Ives symphonies and his conducting of modern music in general, but special? No. I really don't think he's a very interesting or important conductor. I don't understand the appeal or the hype. Glad we were able to enjoy Salonen for so long a tenure in LA... A truly special conductor.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this report!
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