By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News
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Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; Los Angeles Master Chorale; Marino Formenti, piano
Salonen: LA Variations; Harrison: Piano Concerto; Adams: City Noir
Friday, November 27 2009 • Walt Disney Concert Hall
Next concerts: Tonight at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m.
Info: www.laphil.com
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One thing we’ve learned about Gustavo Dudamel, the new music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is that’s he’s fearless when it comes to programming. His inaugural concert featured the world premiere of City Noir, written specifically for the occasion by John Adams. His first subscription concerts included the U.S. premiere of a piece by Chinese composer Unsik Chin. And his first month of subscription concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall has delivered works by Luciano Berio and Alban Berg, among others.
To conclude four consecutive weeks of programs Dudamel, in effect, carried coals to Newcastle, opening last night’s concert with LA Variations, a work written in 1996 specifically for the L.A. Phil by Dudamel’s predecessor, Esa-Pekka Salonen. He concluded the evening with a reprise of City Noir. In between, came the first LAPO performances of Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto, with Italian-born pianist Marino Formenti as the soloist.
All of this was the Phil’s first musical contribution to the orchestra’s West Coast/Left Coast Festival. It was also unbalanced from a time point of view: the first half (LA Variations and the concerto) lasted more than an hour, while City Noir checked in at just slightly over half an hour.
After two weeks of modest-sized orchestras for music by Mozart and Schubert, this was an evening devoted to excess. The largest array of percussion instruments I can ever recall was splashed across the back of the stage (eight percussionists were used in City Noir) and more than 100 musicians filled nearly available space on stage. To these eyes and ears, the entire evening was exhilarating.
Perhaps because it was unknown to many in the audience, the Harrison piano concerto proved to be the evening’s major surprise; it was also an example of the “a little knowledge can be dangerous” syndrome. Were one only to read John Henken’s erudite program notes, a listener might be prepared for a long slog. Harrison, wrote Henken (quoting Adams), “was the first major composer in the Western world to seriously incorporate alternate tuning systems into his music.” Later Adams noted, the concerto “calls for the solo piano to be tuned in an archaic mode called ‘Kirnberger 2’ that is subtly different from our garden-variety equal-tempered scale.”
Unless you’re entranced by such esoterica, ignore all of it if you’re going to the performances tonight or tomorrow. The most unusual nature of the concerto was its orchestral makeup: no winds, just three trombones (no other brass) two harps, strings and a small percussion array including side drums and bongos (played winsomely by Raynor Carroll) set in front of the conductor’s podium.
The concerto itself turned out to be a beautiful, beguiling piece that is almost two different works. It opens with a lush, romantic first movement that sounds like something Rachmaninoff would have written had he lived until the mid-1980s. Its elegant third movement has a dreamy Debussy feel to it. However, in the second movement (labeled Stampede), the soloist unleashes a Oklahoma land rush-like torrent of octaves, runs and other assorted notes flying up and down the keyboard at breakneck speed; the page turner last night might as well not have sat down, so often did she bounce up to flick over a page. The short final movement proved to be a lighter version of that second movement before evaporating unexpectedly into silence.
After last night’s performance, I wondered why this concerto isn’t played more often. At least one reason might be that few pianists would want to take the time to learn the second movement. Formenti, who made his L.A. Phil debut last year as soloist in Olivier Messiaen’s From the Canyons to the Stars, was formidable in Harrison’s second-movement torrent and sweepingly elegant in the first and third movements. Dudamel and the orchestra provided sensitive accompaniment throughout.
Both LA Variations and City Noir are, in effect, concertos for orchestra with each composer bouncing the solo spotlight around and through the various orchestra principals and sections. Although he used a score for both pieces, Dudamel was thoroughly immersed in each work’s intricate timing and rhythmic changes and led fully charged performances.
Many in the orchestra have played LA Variations since it was first performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 1987 but even those with less familiarity gave the 20-minute piece a confident, bracing reading. It remains one of Salonen’s best creations.
Most composers struggle to get even a second reading of a new piece so Adams is thrice lucky since the Phil will be playing City Noir in three different settings: the inaugural gala last month, this weekend subscription concerts and next spring’s cross-country tour when it will be played in San Francisco, Phoenix, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City (it doesn’t hurt that Adams is the Phil’s new Creative Chair and is curating the West Coast/Left Coast festival).
My second hearing of City Noir left me as impressed and exhilarated as the first. The 30-minute, three-movement symphony (in all but name) is a big, bold, atmospheric depiction of Los Angeles’ grimy culture of the 1940s and 1950s celebrated in the “film noir” idiom of motion pictures. The orchestra, which already appears to have the music embedded in its DNA, played superbly with special kudos to saxophonist Timothy McAllister and the entire percussion section. Dudamel was in complete control throughout, bobbing, jabbing, swaying and cueing, always with a broad smile on his face. The shattering conclusion brought the ultimate accolade: several seconds of absolute silence from the stunned audience before a thunderous ovation for Dudamel, the orchestra and the composer (who bounded up on stage).
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Hemidemisemiquavers:
• The orchestra was dressed in all-black (i.e., no white shirts for the men). Some of the men wore long-sleeve shirts only; others (including Dudamel) donned black jackets, as well.
• Although I have no real dislike for Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 The Age of Anxiety), it’s too bad that the Phil didn’t elect to take the Harrison concerto on tour next spring instead.
• Copies of the DVD of Dudamel’s inaugural gala (which includes City Noir) are on sale in the Disney Hall book store. Judging from the crush before the concert, the store could use a couple more cashiers.
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(c) Copyright 2009, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.
