Dudamel's left hand is the right stuff

Lucky enough to be going to Disney Hall the next couple of weeks to see wunderkind conductor Gustavo Dudamel back on the podium? If so, keep an eye on the young conductor’s left hand.

No, this isn't some weird fetish thing. It's a chance to focus on a key element of his technique, which is what makes him the real deal.

A quick tutorial: At the most rudimentary level, conductors use their hands to accomplish specific tasks. The right hand –- maybe using a baton, maybe not –- keeps the orchestra in time. It's the conductor basically functioning as a traffic cop. The left hand is supplementary and is used to cue sections of the orchestra and shape the dynamics of the sound, louder, softer, etc.

Most conductors of top orchestras who come our way are in their 40s or older, with thousands of performances behind them. The work of building the performances is accomplished out of our sight during rehearsals; the left-hand motions we see on the podium tend to be broad and perfunctory, acting as reminders to the orchestra: an outstretched palm, say, to tamp down the brass, or the whole hand clutched to sustain a note from the strings.

But there's no sleight of hand with the 27-year-old Dudamel.

Sunday afternoon I enjoyed a ringside view of the Orange County Philharmonic Society concert where Dudamel led the Israel Philharmonic through a program of Mendelssohn and Brahms. I was about 8 feet away, just below him, to his right, so I had a perfect sight line upward of Dudamel's profile. About 10 minutes into the performance I realized my focus was almost entirely on his left hand and the extrordinary way he employs it.

He isn't a large person, and his hands are not especially big. But his fingers are memorable because of how -- arm extended and elevated, palm down -- he splays them slightly apart. Each digit resembled an extended tendril that seemed to have, crazy as it sounds, movement independent of the rest of his hand.

Another thing -- and it might have been my angle -- is that his fourth finger appears almost as long as the middle one. During some quiet passages in the second movement of Mendelssohn's 4th, the tips of these fingers quivered slightly but frantically as he extended them out, imploring the notes to sustain. The image that came to mind was of E.T.'s tentative but inexorable reach.

This yearning quality of drawing out the dynamics of sound extended to how he used his entire left hand, always more as a seductive tool than as a cudgel. For instance, during the first movement of the Brahms 4th, the piece demands interplay with the winds leading the strings into passages. Dudamel employed a caressing gesture to coax tones from the wind section -- a motion he tappped into intermittently, especially when there was a flute or other wind tone to be had.

He was also incredibly quick with his left hand, darting his gestures to different sections of the orchestra, anticipating the passages to come (as usual, there was no sheet music in front of  Dudamel).

As I left the performance it struck me that this may be the most notable leftie to come to town since Sandy Koufax took the mound for the Dodgers.

-- Christopher Smith

Top photo credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times. Others by Alex Gallardo / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Doug Patti]

This and previous stories on Dudamel and his background smack of the fleeting vacuity of personality worship. It appears that the LAPhil has been lured into the numbers trap. Their motivation is no longer striving for exceptionalism and quality alongside honoring tradition, it is about altering or tinkering with the tradition to appeal to the masses to increase media attention, unquestioning, blind participation by the public (which will never last) merely to bow in adoration of this month's Golden God.

Classical music is also not just a weapon in the arsenal of social manipulation by the elites seeking to somehow "better" society. What do they say about the "Road to Hell" again? The Bolsheviks did this and look what happened, great musicians were either stifled, persecuted or forced to flee in exile. Classical music is about two things: 1. the music created by talented, exceptional, extraordinary INDIVIDUALS of genius, and 2. the aforementioned performed by gifted and outstanding musicians of the day. This is also the underlying problem with Venezuela's vaunted training program in music. Individual talent and achievement is not cultivated, but merely the collective. Sorry, but this is not part of the classical music tradition.

If Dudamel wants to have the most positive effect, he better begin to pay attention to serious study and devotion to THE MUSIC and not his career. Unfortunately, he was not trained to do this. But he is another darling in the Hollywood Oprah-Obama Machine that is set on "unifying" all into uniform thought.

[José Díaz]

Collective? Don't make me laugh. Better learn of how many more Directors of around 22 and some are now working with Rattle, Abbado, Berlin Philarmonic....

[Chola Con Cello]

Whoa Mr. Patti! Who said Dudamel is not exceptional? Does he need the dusty mantle of your elitist approval to continue to provide the level of musicianship and excellence that has always been part of the LA Phil's baton? Perhaps now, the LA Phil's audience will grow to reflect the real masses of Los Angeles' diverse population instead of having to struggle to keep an audience. Being inclusive does not imply a loss of focus on quality music.

Dudamel is all about the music, or haven't you heard that great conductors of the present including Sir Simon Rattle of the Berlin Philharmonic consider that the future of classical music is being modeled in Venezuela's 30+ year-old "El Sistema" youth orchestra movement, under which Dudamel was formed.

Are you kidding me? We could well use an invigorated inclusive youth orchestra movement in L.A. County since we gave ourselves a lobotomy in the 80's by cutting out music and the arts in our public schools.

Get over it.
"The Barbarians at the Gate" are your artistic manna!

[Hugh Briss]

And people wonder why the East coast laughs at the West coast to say nothing of the bitter people clinging to guns and religion in between