Music review: Gustavo Dudamel and Gil Shaham play Mozart and Berg

The great 20th century conductor Bruno Walter claimed he wasn’t ready to conduct Mozart until he was 50. This refined, unfussy musician believed the heaven-sent symphonies of a young composer who died at 35 were wasted on the young, with their immature tendencies to romanticize, their childish swagger, their puppy love.

Gustavo Dudamel, 28, opened and closed a Los Angeles Philharmonic program in Walt Disney Concert Hall Thursday night with two late, major Mozart symphonies – the “Prague” and “Jupiter.”  In an act of great seriousness, he used these scores to make an Alban Berg sandwich. The filling was Berg’s elegiac 12-tone Violin Concerto, written in “memory to an angel,” and the wondrously affecting swan song of the Austrian composer who died at 50 in 1935. The violinist was the still youthful Gil Shaham, 10 years Dudamel’s senior.

Obviously, we have no way of knowing whether Walter would have thought that Thursday’s performances had too much musical baby fat.

But I thought about this once-perfect Mozartean on Thursday. Dudamel uses a slightly smaller orchestra for the symphonies than was the custom in Walter’s day. And Dudamel upended the fast movements with rhythmically precise swift punches the way early musickers sometimes do with their flexible period instrument ensembles.

But, somehow, this Venezuelan, who has conducted the Vienna Philharmonic only a time or two (and most recently in Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky), excavated a long-lost Viennese character out of his new orchestra.

Gustavo Dudamel prefers European seating for L.A. Philharmonic (with caveats)

When Gustavo Dudamel led the Los Angeles Philharmonic earlier this month in Verdi's "Requiem," audiences may have noticed that the second violin section had reverted to its old seating arrangement, wedged between the first violins and the woodwind section.

This seating was the standard for the orchestra at its previous home in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Sometime after moving to Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2003, Esa-Pekka Salonen decided to shake things up by placing the second violin section on the opposite side of the stage from the first violins, in what is known as European seating -- and it has stayed that way for the most part ever since.

So does the "Requiem" mean that Dudamel has reversed Salonen's decision? The answer, according to violinists in the orchestra, is no.

They say Dudamel intends to keep the European seating introduced by his predecessor but that certain pieces like the "Requiem" require placing the second violins in their old spot.

Music review: Dudamel conducts Schubert and Berio

Thursday night, Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new music director, ended the second program of his current monthlong residency at Walt Disney Concert Hall with an extravagantly “finished” performance of Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony. This beloved two-movement torso sounded so sonically fleshy and alive that it would have been hard to imagine fleshing it out further with realizations of the final two movements Schubert never bothered, for mysterious reasons, to complete.

But then – if you accept the notion that no score is done until performed, no performance is definitive and the audience completes the work – all music is unfinished, even if some pieces are more unfinished than others. And Dudamel’s fascinating program was designed to show just how slippery this whole concept of finishing is in music. 

The evening began with the late Italian composer Luciano Berio’s rendering of Schubert’s 10th Symphony, which the earlier composer left in bits and pieces when he died. That was followed by Berio’s “Folk Songs,” a modernist refinishing of traditional songs from around the world, here further finished in unique interpretations by soprano Dawn Upshaw.

Dudamel tackles Verdi's Requiem

 
Gustavo Dudamel is back in town, and Thursday night he conducted a magnificently theatrical performance of Verdi’s Requiem that felt like his first real concert as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. All Los Angeles, of course, knows that last month Dudamel began his tenure with a free event at the Hollywood Bowl, and that was followed by nervous-making high-profile programs in Walt Disney Concert Hall the next week.

But now that the media feeding frenzy has somewhat died down, and he has been away for three weeks, Dudamel has returned to Disney for a month of relatively normal music making. However, relatively normal is, for this young energy source, something devilishly deep and ambitious about every program.

Nor have those three weeks since we’ve seen him been exactly uneventful. Dudamel appeared in Europe and Canada with his Simon Bolívar Youth Orchestra, was named a Chevalier of arts and letters in Paris, selected as 2010 recipient of MIT’s Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts and picked up the Glenn Gould Protégé Prize in Toronto. He also celebrated his Mahler First, recorded live at his opening L.A. Philharmonic concerts, topping the Billboard classical charts.

Expectations, thus, keep rising, and Verdi’s Requiem does not make a small statement. Moreover, this is a work to which Dudamel is relatively new. He has yet to conduct a Verdi opera, and his first Requiem performance was only last May with his Swedish orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony.

But Thursday, Dudamel already seemed an old Verdi hand. He led the grand and intricate 90-minute score for four vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra from memory. He gave a wonderful Italianate shape to Verdi’s vocal writing. He found the source of the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s radiance. He achieved remarkably expressive and vividly dramatic playing from the orchestra.

'El Sistema' documentary highlights disadvantaged youth in Venezuela

There are plenty of scenes of Gustavo Dudamel in the 2008 documentary "El Sistema."

Here he is conducting the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra in a concert in Caracas. There he is talking about the importance of El Sistema -- the government financed social program that gives free music education to youth throughout Venezuela.

But Dudamel isn't the main attraction in the documentary, which is newly available on DVD. The real stars of the movie are the numerous children -- from toddlers to teenagers -- whose lives have been remarkably improved through music education and the daily rigors of orchestra rehearsal.

"El Sistema," directed by Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier, visits the homes of several young students who live in some of the worst slums of Venezuela. The film follows them on their quotidian routines of school, rehearsal and practice, providing an intimate account of life on the micro level.

The movie takes a non-sentimental approach to its subjects and makes abundantly clear that not everyone will rise to the level of Dudamel. In fact, we learn that there is competition within El Sistema for students to make the best youth orchestras in the country. It isn't easy and many are disappointed.

Making room for the new guy: Salonen on Dudamel

 

As he was the leader of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 17 years, there are some who probably expected former music director Esa-Pekka Salonen, 51 -- also composer of  "L.A. Variations" and "Wing on Wing," which had their world premieres with the Philharmonic   -- to be sitting front and center when his successor, 28-year-old Venezuelan Gustavo Dudamel (do we really need to keep saying who this guy is?) stepped up to the podium for his inaugural concerts earlier this month at the Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

But that's not Salonen's style. During a recent telephone chat with Culture Monster, Salonen, who stepped down from the post largely to pursue his passion for composing and now holds the heady title of the Philharmonic's first Conductor Laureate, talked about why he was conspicuously absent from the hoopla.

Speaking from New York, where the Finnish-born conductor was rehearsing for his much-anticipated debut conducting the Metropolitan Opera in November, Salonen talked about why he didn't show up to walk the pink carpet at Disney Hall (yeah, it was pink) to smile for the cameras and engage in what would definitely have been a photo-op group hug.

The point of our conversation was to talk about composer John Adams, the Phil's new creative chairman and curator of the upcoming West Coast, Left Coast festival of California music, running Nov.21 to Dec. 8. 

What led Salonen to talk about Dudamel was the question: Would you have wanted to curate the festival?

"Not this close to the end of my tenure," said Salonen quickly. "At some point in the future I would be very happy to do something of this sort, but I really felt that there's a new guy in town, and he should get on with it and do his own thing. I really felt that it would be sort of a natural, right thing to do to give him some space. Which is not to say that I wouldn't be listening."

Continued Salonen: "I'll come back at some point when the dust has settled and start working with the Phil again in a different capacity, a different sort of thing -- but not quite yet."

Dude-tube: Gustavo Dudamel concert airs on KCET

Didn't catch Gustavo Dudamel's inaugural concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall earlier this month?

No problem. PBS has your front row seat ready tonight when stations around the country -- including L.A.'s very own KCET -- broadcast the Los Angeles Philharmonic concert as part of the "Great Performances" series.

The taped broadcast begins at 8 p.m. on KCET and will last for close to two hours. (It repeats Sunday at 3 p.m.) Those in Orange County will have to wait just a little bit longer: The episode is scheduled to air on KOCE on Thursday, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m., according to the station.

In case you haven't heard by now, Dudamel is the new music director of the L.A. Philharmonic. The young Venezuelan conductor made his season debut at a free concert at the Hollywood Bowl on Oct. 3. He then conducted his inaugural concert at Disney Hall on Oct. 8.

The Disney Hall concert features the world premiere of John Adams' "City Noir," an orchestral homage to L.A. noir and the movies. It also includes a performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1.

And if you still can't enough of the Dude, there's a DVD release of the concert that is scheduled to hit shelves later this year.

Be sure to check out Times music critic Mark Swed's review of the performance, plus all of Culture Monster's coverage of Dudamel's big debut.

-- David Ng

Photo: Gustavo Dudamel, backstage just before his inaugural concert at Disney Hall with stage manager Jeff Wallace. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

Going global, El Sistema starts fellows program in U.S.

The music program known as El Sistema -- which for 32 years has brought free classical music education to disadvantaged youth in Venezuela -- is no longer that country's secret. It seems as if now the whole world wants to copy or at least learn from the program, whose most famous alumnus is conductor Gustavo Dudamel.

Today, the New England Conservatory launched its Abreu Fellows training program, one of the first major initiatives of El Sistema USA. The program is named after Jose Antonio Abreu, the founder of El Sistema in Venezuela.

The Abreu Fellows Program provides tuition-free instruction and a living stipend for young postgraduate musicians who seek to develop El Sistema programs in the U.S. and beyond, according to the organization. The fellows range in age from 22 to 44 and are graduates of university or conservatory music programs.

Among the inaugural fellows are Daniel Berkowitz, Jonathan Andrew Govias, Lorrie Heagy, Rebecca Levi, David Malek, Dantes Rameau, Alvaro Rodas, Stanford Leon Thompson, Christine Witowski and Kathryn Wyatt.

During their time as fellows, they will receive instruction in subjects including child psychology, fundraising and publicity. They will also travel to Venezuela, where they will spend two months observing the operations of music education centers throughout the country.

After their fellowship, they will be required to devote at least one year to advance or found an El Sistema program outside Venezuela, according to the organization.

-- David Ng

Photo: Jose Antonio Abreu in 2008. Credit: Susana Gonzalez / For The Times

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Gustavo Dudamel to accept Glenn Gould award in Toronto

Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic's new music director, has just completed his first series of concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall, but that doesn't mean the Venezuelan conductor is finished with festivities for the season.

On Oct. 27 he will be in Toronto to accept an award from the Glenn Gould Foundation. While he's there, Dudamel will conduct the Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra in its Canadian debut. 

Dudamel's award -- called the City of Toronto Glenn Gould Protege Prize -- was first announced in July. He will receive a cash award of $15,000 from the city as part of the prize. Previous Protege winners include Tan Dun, Benny Green, Roman Patkoló and Jean-Guihen Queyras.

The weeklong celebration, which will take place at the Four Seasons Center for the Performing Arts in Toronto, will also honor Jose Abreu, who founded the El Sistema music program in Venezuela and was instrumental in launching Dudamel's career. Abreu will receive the foundation's main award -- the Glenn Gould Prize.

The foundation said it hands out its awards once every three years. The last recipient of the Glenn Gould Prize was conductor-composer André Previn, who served as the music director of the L.A. Philharmonic from 1985 to 1989.

Abreu and Dudamel are scheduled to give concerts and talks throughout the week as part of the festivities.

-- David Ng

Photo: Dudamel conducting recently at Disney Hall. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

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Music review: Dudamel turns to the East

On the seventh day, Gustavo Dudamel did not rest.

In case you’re just tuning in (is that possible?), on Oct. 3, the 11th music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic began his tenure with a free community concert that included an exalted performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Hollywood Bowl. The world took notice.

Thursday night he opened the orchestra’s Walt Disney Concert Hall season with a star-studded gala, in which he premiered John Adams’ gripping, large-scale “City Noir” and performed Mahler’s First Symphony. The media was once more out in force.
 
Friday morning, the plasterboard party bodegas in front of Disney were gone and the G-Man (yet another nickname that Dudamel, aka the Dude, has picked up) and the orchestra, which is quickly learning what it means to have a hyper-energetic 28-year-old in charge, were rehearsing once more for that evening’s first regular concert of the season. (The program repeats tonight and Sunday afternoon.)

On this program, Dudamel replaced the new Adams score (he will repeat it during the orchestra's West Coast, Left Coast festival in November) with a radically different sort of new work, Unsuk Chin’s "Su.”  Like Thursday, he ended with the Mahler First.