Robert D. Thomas/Class Act: OVERNIGHT REVIEW: Los Angeles Philharmonic gala 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, Herbie Hancock, piano
Gershwin: Cuban Overture, Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 • Walt Disney Concert Hall
Next concerts: Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Walt Disney Concert Hall
Information: www.laphil.com
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Blue and gold were the dominant colors at Walt Disney Concert Hall last night. No, UCLA wasn’t playing. Blue was everywhere (even the usual red carpet was blue last night), an obvious reference to the final work in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s season-opening gala concert: George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The gold came courtesy of the performance standards from the orchestra, Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, and legendary jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, the evening’s soloist.

In many ways, it was your standard LAPO gala. A packed house was on hand, many dressed in formal finery. It was a late-arriving throng; more than half struggled to wander to their seats well after the appointed 7 p.m. start time (the downbeat came at 7:18 p.m.). TV cameras and still photogs recorded entrances of the rich and famous. The WNET NY camera crew was on hand to record the concert for a later PBS Great Performances telecast to the U.S. and Europe. Grand Ave. was closed off (creating the usual traffic jam), this time with a faux-brick covered tent for the post-concert party. The tent entrance was marked with a nifty art-decco sign that also served as the logo for the dressed up, blue-colored program. The concert ended with the now-obligatory shower of shiny blue and silver mylar snips accented by strobe lights.

Fortunately (since the concert ran about 1:20 with no intermission) there were no preconcert speeches, although Dudamel did chat a little between pieces, saying little worthwhile but doing so with his charming smile and accented English. The music was the focal point (especially for non-party goers), which was as it should be.

All three of the Gershwin works on the formal program are standard outdoor (e.g., Hollywood Bowl) pieces and it was a pleasure to hear them indoors in the marvelous Disney Hall acoustic.

Dudamel and Co. opened with a saucy, sultry performance of the Cuban Overture, a piece Gershwin wrote in 1932 following a visit to Havana. As it did all night, the Philharmonic played with razor-sharp precision and several of the soloists — Ariana Ghez, oboe, Michele Zukovsky, clarinet, Thomas Hooten, trumpet (see the note in Hemidemisemiquavers below) — and the entire string section were exemplary. Dudamel ignored Gershwin instructions, written on title page, that the four Cuban instruments — claves, maracas, guiro and bongos — should be placed in front of the conductor’s stand but they were heard anyway.

Most conductors would place Rhapsody in Blue following the overture and end with An American in Paris (which, indeed, was how the Web site listed the order) but Dudamel elected to reverse the order because of Hancock’s appearance.

Gershwin considered An American in Paris to be (quoting the program note by Eric Blomberg) “a tone poem for orchestra — a musical portrait of an American visitor to the City of Light.” Although sketches of the work were written in the early 1920s, the flavor of the piece resulted from of an extended vacation by Gershwin and his family to Paris in 1928. Gershwin was age 30 at the time of the visit and Dudamel’s concept of An American in Paris is of a young man, full of life, striding briskly, not strolling, down the streets of Paris.

The work is clearly in Dudamel’s wheelhouse (as baseball players like to say about a perfectly placed pitch). He bobbed, weaved, bounced and danced his way through the saucy segments and invested the other moments with a grandiloquent style; the whole thing should look great on television. Once again principals shone: in this case, Hooten, James Miller, trombone, Norman Pearson, tuba, the four saxophonists and Concertmaster Martin Chalifour.

That left center stage to Hancock, who at age 71 still can tinkle the ivories with panache and has extended his contract as the orchestra’s Creative Chair for Jazz through the 2012-2013 season. He began by freely improvising on two Gershwin songs, Embraceable You and Someone to Watch Over Me. Unfortunately, his wistful mood was somewhat sabotaged by coughs, sneezes and other assorted noises from the audience, some of whom may not realize how “live” Disney Hall is.

When it comes to Rhapsody in Blue, Hancock and Dudamel had widely divergent opinions on tempi, but the whole was infinitely greater than the sum of the parts, noteworthy as those individual contributions were. After Zukovsky got things swinging with her saucy, sensuous opening clarinet lick, Dudamel raced the orchestra along through most of the early orchestral sections, only to broaden out in the final climactic moments. Kudos, especially, to trumpeter James Wilt for his sultry sounds.

Hancock, meanwhile (who used a score), showed plenty of chops while accompanying the orchestra. When not constrained by Dudamel’s tempi, he delivered the solo portions with an improvisatory feel, even when he was playing Gershwin’s notes, an impish grin every once in awhile saying, in effect, to the audience, “Isn’t this cool?” It was all of that and the audience erupted in an instantaneous standing ovation at the conclusion, with Dudamel — always the gentleman — ceding most of the glory to Hancock, who beamed and waved to everyone on all sides of the hall.
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Hemidemisemiquavers:
• Hancock told the crowd that this was the first time he had played with a symphony orchestra, forgetting that his bio says he played a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony at age 11 (to be fair, that was 60 years ago). He’s scheduled to play Rhapsody in Blue with the Calgary Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony and Oregon Symphony next month.
• Australian Andrew Bain has become the Phil’s new principal horn. He has held similar positions with the Melbourne and Queensland Symphony Orchestras.
• Daniel Rothmuller is serving as the orchestra’s Associate Principal Cellist Emeritus while Peter Stumpf is on leave teaching at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. CK Dexter Haven in his Blog, “All is Yar,” has much to say and speculate about this (LINK).
• Thomas Hooten (principal trumpet of the Atlanta Symphony) is on board as guest principal trumpet for the opening concerts and will play on the upcoming tour to San Francisco while the Phil’s principal, Donald Green, is on sabbatical. Hooten was the first recipient of the ASO’s Mabel Dorn Reeder Honorary Chair, a five-year award according to an article by Howard Posner on the Atlanta Journal & Constitution Web site (LINK).
• The L.A. Phil’s 2011-2012 subscription season opens this weekend with an all-orchestral (i.e., no soloist) concert that includes Adams’ Tromba Iontana (a four-minute-long fanfare), the U.S. premiere of Rituales Amerindios by Argentinean composer Esteban Benzecry, and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. Asadour Santourian, artistic advisor and administrator of Aspen Music Festival and School, will deliver a preconcert lecture an hour before each concert. Information and dates are at the top of this review.
• If you’re not already on the email list, now is a good time to sign up for “Fast Notes,” which are emailed from the orchestra a few days before each event. “Fast Notes” are a quick overview of the upcoming concert with links to program notes and other information. Even if you’re not going to attend a particular concert, they’re worth reading. Sign up at: www.laphil.com
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.