OVERNIGHT REVIEW: L.A. Phil's "Casual Friday" concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall

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
Brahms: Academic Festival Overture; Symphony No. 3
Friday, March 4, 2011 • Walt Disney Concert Hall
Next concerts: Today at 8 p.m. Sunday at 2 p.m. The program will be the third symphonies of Polish composer Henryk Górecki and Brahms.
Info: www.laphil.com
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One of the joys of attending a live concert as opposed to listening to a recording is spontaneity. A recording is a snapshot of one performance, frozen in time; each time you listen it’s the same thing, however excellent. When you attend live concerts, each hearing is unique, even if the program contains the same works.

Consider last night’s “Casual Friday” concert by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall as a prime example. Eight times during the indoor season, the orchestra radically changes the concert format. The musicians wear casual clothes, which range from chic to VERY casual. The audience follows the “casual” dress motif but since this is Southern California, there’s not a great difference in attire between a “Casual Friday” concert and “normal” performances.

By now, the program format has been established: an orchestra member gives a brief talk about what he or she does, the orchestra plays one or two pieces, and the evening concludes with a 15-minute question-and-answer session with the featured orchestra speaker, the “Upbeat Live” (i.e., formal preconcert lecture) speaker, and the conductor, followed by drinks with orchestra members in the downstairs café.

The target audience is people who don’t usually attend concerts, although many who come are “veterans” who just like the format; the concept’s popularity can be deduced from the fact that it has grown from four concerts to eight (in two series) in a short span of years.

How well “Casual Friday” works depends, in large measure, on the introductory speaker and the Q&A session. When Music Director Gustavo Dudamel is the conductor, as was the case last night, well over half the capacity crowd stays for the feedback session; last night we learned, among other things, that this week marks the first time that the Venezuelan maestro has conducted Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 in performance.

The introducer last night was Mark Kashper, a 33-year-veteran of the second violin section, who used a wicked sense of humor during his 10 minutes to impart a great deal of information about playing second fiddle, while subtly twitting both Dudamel and the Phil’s management. If Kashper ever gets tired of playing violin, he’s got a potential second career in stand-up comedy.

Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 is the least played of the composer’s four symphonies. It’s the shortest of the quartet but it packs a lot into 35 minutes and Dudamel and the orchestra gave us a lot to think about last night.

After his rapid-fire concept of the second symphony last week, Dudamel returned to his expansive mood for the third, but the tempos — while relaxed — never bogged down. He was in his “shape every phrase” mode, playing off the orchestra’s sumptuous strings against the mellow woodwinds and brass throughout the performance. Yet in the third-movement Scherzo, Dudamel got the strings to play briefly with a leaner, tauter sound that provide a highly effective contrast to the Andante second movement. The piece is framed by a dramatic theme, which in the final movement concluded with a serene majesty. I’ve never been as moved by a performance of this symphony as I was last night.

Even for a “Casual Friday” concert, a 35-minute symphony is too short to stand on its own. Last night was supposed to open with Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn. However, as most everyone knows, the Phil’s “Brahms Unbound” festival has undergone significant alterations since it was announced 15 months ago.

This week’s concerts were supposed to feature the world premiere of Peter Lieberson’s Percussion Concerto, but the composer died before completing it. The substituted piece for this weekend’s other concerts was Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) by Polish composer Henryk Górecki, but because that work is 55 minutes long, the Haydn Variations were jettisoned for last night.

Now, one might think that this would have been a good night to bring back the Tragic Overture, which was supposed to be played last week but was dropped due to the complicated setup for last week’s performance of Glorious Percussion. Apparently not.

Thus, for the second consecutive “Casual Friday” concert and the third time in four weeks (plus Cameron Carpenter’s organ transcription earlier this month), patrons got yet another run-through of Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture. The performance was first-rate and, in the Q&A afterward, Dudamel skillfully danced around the first question: why some in the audience were hearing this overture for the third time. Dudamel noted that, since the overture was written in between the time when the second and third symphonies were composed, its inclusion made musical sense. Perhaps, although I’m not sure the questioner was appeased.
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Hemidemisemiquavers:
• To at least two critics, Mark Swed in the Los Angeles Times (LINK) and Brian in Out West Arts (LINK), the Phil’s performance of Górecki’s Third was special. That’s not a surprise in the case of Mark, who has been very positive in his reviews about the first three weeks of “Brahms Unbound,” but Brian, who has been quite negative about Dudamel’s Brahms’ interpretations up to this point, even liked Dudamel’s concept of the Brahms third.
• If you’re coming tonight or tomorrow, be advised that the order of the two pieces has been switched, wisely in my opinion.
• The Brahms survey concludes next week with Brahms’ Double Concerto featuring soloists Renaud and Gautier Capuçon) and his fourth symphony. (LINK)
• The June 5 concert is also the final segment of the Phil’s inaugural “LA Phil LIVE” series; the concert will be telecast live to more than 450 theaters throughout the United States and Canada (LINK). No word to this point whether the series will continue next season; owing to scheduling quirks, there only a few Dudamel concerts that seem appropriate for this format and three of them come in the first five weeks of the season. I wonder whether Frank Gehry’s staging of Mozart’s Don Giovanni or the world premiere of John Adams’ new oratorio, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, will be selected; those would be gutsy calls for a still-new series.
• It’s interesting to speculate on how Mark Kashper’s witty talk from last night would translate to a TV audience. Well, I should imagine.
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

Comments

[Gary]

A very good review. We were at Friday's concert and enjoyed it very much, though neither my girlfriend nor myself are Brahm's fans particularly.

There is a new woman in the horn section? I thought she did a nice job on her solo.

We are in our second year of subscribing to the casual Fridays series. We enjoy the post concert talks. The Dude comes across as being a genuine and enthusiastic dude.

But when did the raise the prices of the gin and tonics? :-)

[MarK]

The "new woman" in the horn section was Lisa Ford - the principal in Gustavo's "other" orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony - who was temporarily occupying the first horn position with the LA Phil for most of the last five weeks of the past winter season because this orchestra has been searching for a while for, and is now awaiting the arrival of, its next principal horn player who will probably join the Walt Disney Concert Hall's resident band some time during the next season.

[jobs online]

Great review...Lisa Ford suits the new woman in the horn section.