Critic's Notebook: Dudamel takes the L.A. Philharmonic to New York

Reviews of and reactions to the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s first tour through America with its new music director, Gustavo Dudamel, have ranged from ecstatic to snarky. Audiences have been, reportedly, enthusiastic. Some big-city music critics, meanwhile, have come carefully armed against hype.

Going a step further than the dubious reviewers in San Francisco and Chicago, Peter Dobrin, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer about Wednesday’s concert in Verizon Hall, chose not to assume that Dudamel’s hiring was a cynical ploy on the part of the L.A. Philharmonic. Instead, he chalked the whole hustle up to us, in the unwashed West, naively “charting the currents of [Dudamel’s] dark curls” as if they represented the actual brain power underneath of a music thinker.

Thursday, the Philharmonic reached its final destination, New York, for the first of two concerts at Lincoln Center. After a performance on Friday at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, the new music director will finish his first L.A. Philharmonic season Saturday with the same John Adams/Mahler program he led at his Wall Disney Concert Hall gala in October.

This first Avery Fisher Hall concert began with Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, “Age of Anxiety,” and at intermission an editor, extremely well-connected in the classical music scene here, asked me if I had noticed what was special about the crowd.

There had been a considerable amount of rustling and coughing during the quiet clarinet opening, adding an unwanted layer of unease to an “Age of Anxiety.” The symphony is also a piano concerto, and the audience was no more polite to pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in his soft solo passages. Plus, I overheard Alec Baldwin, who happened to be seated near me, make it clear he was immune to Dudamel hard-sell.

“They’ve come for blood,” I answered my friend. “Absolutely not,” he said. “They’re here to have a good time. And how often do you see that in Avery Fisher Hall?”

I had misread the signs. New Yorkers quiet down when they are ready and not before, so that is nothing to take personally. Fisher was packed (both L.A. Philharmonic programs sold out long ago). And the response, for Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” Symphony after intermission, proved tremendous.

The third movement is an exciting march that often gets applause. Still, it is rare and thrilling to see New York classical music mavens give a thunderous standing ovation in the middle of a symphony. (New York being New York, a few people also took this as great opportunity to leave, presumably to beat the rush for a cab or to land a coveted outdoor table at crowded nearby restaurants on a pleasantly warm evening.)

Dudamel sometimes likes to let pieces that are dramatically dark and death-haunted, such as Verdi’s Requiem and this “Pathetique,” remain unworldly as long as possible before applause interrupts. In Los Angeles, he was allowed a full minute of silence after the “Pathetique.” On the road, he apparently had mixed success standing still after the piece ends, getting away with from 20 to 40 seconds. I’m told that in Philly a cellphone rang (and rang) during the last two sad minutes of the symphony and applause began within two seconds afterward, further evidence, no doubt, that Dudamel attracts all the wrong people.

New Yorkers abhor a vacuum and gave Dudamel about 30 seconds. The conductor looked unhappy, but I thought it, in this town, a triumph. The ovation was a big one. On the top balcony, fans unveiled a large Venezuelan flag, which they waved and danced under. Jubilation in a Fisher concert is notable; jubilation anywhere after Tchaikovsky’s farewell to life is astonishing.

Hearing the L.A. Philharmonic in Fisher is, in many ways, a different experience from concerts in Disney Hall. The New York Philharmonic does not play on risers; the L.A. players had them Thursday. These risers, more minimal than those at Disney, probably did help make certain instrumental details transparent. Ultimately, though, this is a hall that produces a wall of sound. Disney has a levitating acoustic. In Fisher, the music comes at you like a speeding subway train impossible to dodge.

The acoustics made Dudamel seem a more aggressive conductor than he does at home. Bernstein’s symphony suffered balance problems between piano and orchestra, but the work is surprisingly rare, even in this hallowed Bernstein ground, and it was seen as savvy and much-appreciated programming. Dudamel played up the extremes of Tchaikovsky -- ethereal pianissimos were invaded by dramatic theatrical assaults. This evoked, for more than one old timer, the young Bernstein.

Dudamel’s encore was the waltz from Bernstein’s Divertimento. It was exquisite. As in L.A., it was little recognized and much admired. Even Alec Baldwin, possibly recognizing on some level a kindred New York spirit after all, wondered what it was.

--Mark Swed, from New York

Photos: Dudamel with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall. Credit: Henny Ray Abrams / Associated Press

Comments

[Musicast]

Mr. Swed, please remove my last Unfinished comment and use this one instead.

Here we go again, another pro-hometown review by Mr. Swed, in usually pleasing light to the Philharmonic. It seems classical music critics really prefer writing mostly good stuff about their own town's ensembles and put visiting ones down without any mercy. Remember how Mr. Swed reviewed the philly orchestra's concert in disney hall a couple of years ago? Why so suprisef philly critic would do the same in return. This writing business is really
not so trust worthy to me.

[Musicast]

I don't claim to know Bernstein, although did play under him in tanglewood music center orchestra for two summers. I just wonder how mark swed can claim to know young bernstein and comparing him with dudamel. A 30 year old bernstein lived in 1948, how old was mark then? Did mark ever go to a 30 something bernstein's concerts? Come On!

[craigola]

The first two readers to comment on the Philadelphia Inquirer's review seemed to like the concert much more.

The first one started off: " One can only hope - and pray - that Peter Dobrin doesn't survive the ownership transition at The Philadelphia Inquirer.... I am a musician and my experiences with The Tchaikovsky 6th go back to Eugene Ormandy and The Philadelphia Orchestra when I was a kid. There was so much to admire and appreciate in Wednesday's performance..."

The second one began: "Every time I read a review by Peter Dobrin, I'm convinced that we were not actually in attendance at the same concert..."

[Irritating Pedant]

"(New York being New York, a few people also took this as great opportunity to leave, presumably to beat the rush for a cab or to land a coveted outdoor table at crowded nearby restaurants on a pleasantly warm evening.)"

Aw, cut us some slack, Mark. Some people may have left to beat the rush for a cab (the restaurants' outdoor tables were probably already full). But this was Thursday - a "school night." There were almost certainly people who had to rush to catch a commuter train or bus home (the next one might not leave for an hour), or just to catch the subway so as not to get home too late. In New York you don't get to roll into work late the next morning because you were at the symphony or opera the night before.

[Irritating Pedant]

@ Musicast:

Whatever the reason the Inquirer's critic panned the Dude and the LA Phil, it certainly wasn't payback for an unkind LA Times review of Christoph Eschenbach and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Peter Dobrin despised Eschenbach, at least musically. (Rumor has it that when Eschenbach announced that he would not renew his contract in Philly, Dobrin spent the afternoon on the phone gloating.)

[bettie]

"They're here to have a good time."

Just as Dudamel gives his musicians permission and encouragement to actually move while they're playing (talk about a sea change! -- imagine, classical orchestral musicians physically swaying to the music! Horrors!!!), he is also inviting the audience to bring a different bearing to a classical concert. Enjoy!, he tells us all.

God love him.

[Scott]

Dudamel is only 29, so comments that he still needs refinement in his technique and interpretative approach are understandable, though a bit obvious.

The reviewer from Philly, though, judging from his past articles and this one, seems to be positively resentful of all the media attention and enthusiastic responses from audiences that Dudamel's received. Makes me wonder if this doesn't somehow relate to the sad shape the once top-tier Philadelphia Orchestra has fallen to.

The attitude among some critics that classical music is supposed to be some type of fossilized perfection is precisely part of what's driving audiences in Philadelphia and other places away. Maybe one of the reasons that Dudamel's so popular is that he's young and we can all watch as he grows and refines his technique to match his potential talent. In other words, people are able to relate classical music to an actual person, making it a living art, not one etched in stone.

[Milquetoast]

After the finale, I'm sure Alec Baldwin (L. A. hater extraordinaire) and the rest of his ilk were ashamed they had displayed this "usual" New York tendency to shuffle, cough, snort, pick, burp, etc. When you come to hear THE L. A. PHIL, you sit down and shut up! No matter where it is you're from.

[Musicast]

@irratating pedant
i actually disagree with any of pd's opinions 110%. although they do have another writer in philly who has totally opposite music taste. anyway, i would not give a nickle for the credibility of any of these so called classical music reviewers. that's why i would only read them online. finally, i am sure dud and the philharmonic is neither as bad as nor as great as they claim.

[Irritating Pedant]

@Scott:
"Makes me wonder if this doesn't somehow relate to the sad shape the once top-tier Philadelphia Orchestra has fallen to."

Scott, when was the last time you heard the Philadelphia Orchestra? They may be having a rough time of it with their finances and marketing, but Charles Dutoit has them sounding very, very, very good.

@Musicast:
That other critic in Philly, David Patrick Stearns, is one of the best, IMHO. Yeah, his writing style can get a little funky sometimes, but he seems to know a lot about a lot of different music, and he's very fair.

[Vitner]

Scott said it best. People like to think that things are always the best they're ever going to be without remembering that none of us are born perfect, or even close to it. That is, we progress as we get comfortable and then innovate upon that. Dudamel may not be some panacea for the problems facing classical music, but he is sure as hell doing more than practically any conductor out there is doing today. He captivates, energizes, and reinvents. I personally do not believe that orchestras should be audio museums. That simply foretells a dull, lifeless future for the genre.

That said, Allan Kozzin of the NY Times just gave a positive review of the LA Phil and Dudamel on Saturday's concert. For those who care: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/arts/music/24gustavo.html.

[Jen]

why were those new yonkers coughing, flatus, burping, chattering during the clarinet opening. are they typical east coast imbeciles and cannot stop yammering for more than 3 seconds? You are at a concert, please be quiet, and if you are bound to have fits of coughing, burping, flatus, do not attend orchestral concerts--stay home and watch illiterate millionaires play sports or american imbeciles dance on the boob tube.