Music review: Vasily Petrenko conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic

It’s tempting to call conductor Vasily Petrenko “the tall Russian dude.” At 33, he’s four years older than Gustavo Dudamel, who turned 29 last week, but he shares a similarly vital, elemental approach to music. In his astonishing Walt Disney Concert Hall debut Friday morning with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Petrenko made a deeply felt, unforgettable impression in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with soloist Piotr Anderszewski, and in Tchaikovsky’s great “Manfred” Symphony.

As principal conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic since 2005, Petrenko has been revitalizing the musical life of that city, the fourth largest in Britain. Subscriptions are up, and Scousers have embraced him and his family. Last year, his contract with the orchestra was extended to 2015.

Petrenko’s passionate temperament is harnessed to a rigorous structural sense -- one of his teachers was Esa-Pekka Salonen -- and that served him especially well in Tchaikovsky’s potentially sprawling, nearly one-hour symphonic narrative. “Manfred,” inspired by Lord Byron’s celebrated drama, stands as one of Tchaikovsky’s most imaginative and beautifully brooding creations. And Petrenko did it full justice by maintaining dramatic tension throughout, never allowing the composer’s inspired evocations of the restless, tormented hero to descend into bathos. There was charm in Manfred’s melancholy, and the supernatural elements in the score -- including the scherzo’s vision of an Alpine fairy appearing in a waterfall’s rainbow -- created audible delight in the near-capacity audience.

The Philharmonic managed the music’s almost bipolar mood swings seamlessly. Every transition felt natural as one gorgeous melody after another unfolded. In less inspired hands, the work’s longish finale can be a problem. Tchaikovsky inserted a fugue that can be a stodgy drag, but Petrenko sustained momentum, building to Manfred’s apotheosis, conjuring another surprise when the Disney Hall organ kicked in. Some critics have said it’s too much; here it sounded spine-chillingly right.

The concert began with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, in which the 40-year-old Anderszewski proved an inspired soloist. It was a subtle, remarkably detailed performance of an endlessly inventive and high-energy concerto. Petrenko and Anderszewski (pronounced “Ander-SHEV-ski”), who is of Polish-Hungarian parentage, caught the piece’s rushing ebb and flow, its rhythmic delicacy and snap, with breathtaking command. The rambunctious country dance finale sparkled. If this is what Anderszewski -- once a student at USC’s Thornton School and, later, of Murray Perahia’s -- can do in the morning, one wonders what his next evening and afternoon performances will be like.

-- Rick Schultz

Los Angeles Philharmonic. 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. www.laphil.com

Photo: Vasily Petrenko. Credit: Mark McNulty

Comments

[From Red Gulch]

Excellent review, Mr. Schultz. I hope you take more assignments from Herr Swed. Anderszewski was on fire tonight, and Petrenko is better than Dudamel. You read it here first!

[President -- Fullerton Friends of Music]

Attended the Sunday afternoon performance; highly impressed with the Petrenko/LAPO Manfred Symphony performance.

The organ accompaniment in the final movement was stellar; an impressive instrument to match Los Angele's impressive concert hall.

Question out to those who attended the Sunday concert... does anyone know the composer and work Mr. Anderszewski performed as an encore to his solid Beethoven concerto performance?

Solid pianism and solid conducting with great balance in dynamics. Would have personally preferred a bit more interpretive flair in the Beethoven 1st Concerto, similar to the Pletnev/Russian NO interpretation on the recent Deutsche Grammophon CD.

There was nothing lacking in the Manfred Symphony, however. Great job Petrenko and LAPO; hope we get to see this young Russian maestro in the near future again.

[JKelly]

Was at the Sunday concert.
Question about the orchestra seating.
Why were basses on left stage vs right?
thanks for any insight

[MarK]

On Saturday night the pianist played a charming miniature by Bela Bartok as an encore. The piece he played on Sunday afternoon sounded to me like one of Bagatelles by Beethoven.
In virtually all cases in all symphony orchestras, bass sections are usually located behind cello sections, because they play so many similar lines together. Since cellists in that program were seated on the left (just as in most other LA Phil concerts since the orchestra moved to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2003), bassists had to be on that same side of the stage.

[Thibadeaux]

Sunday's encore was Beethoven's Bagatelle, Op. 126, No. 1

[jack scribe]

Re.,JKelly's question: the configuration you saw dates back to orchestra seating in the 18th and 18th centuries. I assume this is Dudamel's preference. Here's a informative note I found:

The rationale behind this seating is twofold: first of all, since much of the repertoire we play was written by composers in the 18th and 19th centuries, it makes sense to arrange the strings the way those composers would have expected. Secondly, by separating the violin sections, you create a very cool stereo effect in the concert hall, especially when you're playing music by a composer (Beethoven, say) who liked to play the violins off each other frequently. Some reviewers have even claimed that they can hear the effect of the antiphonal violins on our Beethoven recordings. (A third benefit could be that, by moving the cellos to an inside position, their soundboxes are facing out at the audience, but I don't know whether that actually makes a huge difference in the sound.)

[President -- Fullerton Friends of Music]

@Thibadeaux and @MarK ...

Thanks for the information regarding the encore and insight regarding the orchestra sections.

Purchased the new Anderszewski Virgin Classics CD and had a feeling that he played one of the Beethoven Bagatelles while listening to the recording today.

Kudos to Daniel Rothmuller of LAPO for giving Mr. Anderszewski "The Nod" (of approval???/encouragment???) to play the encore.

Having listening to the Andrewski/Deutshe Kammerphilharmonie CD, one is able to "reconnect" to some of the memorable passages and parallels to Sunday's Beethoven Concerto performance.

[J Kelly]

Thanks for comments re orchestral seating. I found another reference in the Times dated Nov 16, 2009 which headlines "Gustavo Dudamel prefers European seating for LA Philharmonic (with caveats)." I wonder if moving sections would challenge a conductor or perhaps musicians who are used to certain directional sound triggers? And what about the audience, possibly familiar with recordings from different seatings? I had never thought about how seating would change the listening experience. But it was a great concert for an enthusiastic audience. Thank you LAPO!