SAME-DAY REVIEW: James Conlon, Yuja Wang and L.A. Philharmonic 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; James Conlon, conductor, Yuja Wang, pianist
Britten: Sinfonia da Requiem; Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3; Dvorak: Symphony No. 7
Friday, November 4, 2011 • Walt Disney Concert Hall
Next concerts: Tomorrow at 8 p.m. Sunday at 2 p.m.
Info: www.laphil.com
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With Music Director Gustavo Dudamel away from Los Angeles for the balance of 2011 (he will be leading his Simón Bolivár Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela on a European tour later this month, then heading to Tel Aviv to conduct the Israel Philharmonic), the Los Angeles Philharmonic this morning began a series of concerts led by guest conductors with Los Angeles Opera Music Director James Conlon on the podium. As is usually the case for midday concerts, a large crowd showed up at Walt Disney Concert Hall, braving drizzle (which had turned to steady rain by the time the concert let out) and cool temperatures.

Hearing and seeing Conlon outside the opera pit is always welcome and this morning was no exception. Now age 61, he’s an experienced hand in symphonic repertoire (earlier in his career he was music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic and later of Cologne’s symphony orchestra) and one has only to read laudatory reviews from cities such as San Francisco and Chicago to know he hasn’t lost his touch. Too bad Phil management hasn’t been able to snare him for a longer stretch of engagements (can anyone spell Principal Guest Conductor?), but don’t miss out on the remaining concerts this weekend.

Conlon began with a mid-20th century piece — Benjamin Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem — and worked backwards in time to Prokofiev’s third piano concerto and Dvorak’s seventh symphony. The two symphonies, as Conlon noted in a brief preconcert chat, are in the key of D — major for the Britten and minor for the Dvorak. Each was written during a period of national struggle.

It’s no surprise that Conlon elected to open with a Britten piece. Few conductors working today revere the British conductor more than Conlon, who is in the midst of a three-year-cycle of programming the English composer’s works leading up to the centenary of his birth in 2013.

L.A. Opera performed Britten’s The Turn of the Screw last season and will tackle Albert Herring next spring. One assumes that one of the big Britten operas (e.g., Peter Grimes or Billy Budd) will show up on next year’s LAO schedule (2013 also happens to be the bicentennial of the births of Verdi and Wagner, so opera companies will be awash in anniversary celebrations for the next couple of years).

Although the LAPO didn’t first perform Sinfonia da Requiem until 1971, the work is by now a well-established repertoire piece (all things are relative — this is Britten, after all). The back-story of the work is quite interesting (see some history details below in Hemidemisemiquavers).

Conlon led a compelling performance of the 20-minute work, which contains three connected movements. He sustained the gripping tension in the outer sections masterfully and kept the Dies Irae movement (with its Verdi Requiem allusions) moving along snappily. The large orchestra (the piece includes some major percussion moments) responded powerfully.

Given Conlon’s obvious affinity for Britten, I hope the Phil will sign him to conduct the composer’s War Requiem during the 2012-2013 season. Another reason would be that the 50th anniversary of that landmark piece is May 30, 2012. I could easily imagine soloists in different parts of Disney Hall, children’s chorus and chamber orchestra in the balconies, the Disney Hall organ booming, etc. Would be quite something in Disney’s acoustics, I suspect.

Yuja Wang, the 24-year-old Chinese pianist who created quite a stir at Hollywood Bowl last summer for her “little orange dress,” was the soloist in Prokofiev’s third piano concerto. To get the obvious out of the way, she was dressed this morning in a long, elegant floor-length black gown, which meant that all attention could be focused on her playing where it belongs.

Wang is a very special talent as she proved again this morning. That isn’t due to merely to her ability to race through the bravura sections of this concerto, although race she did, with hands flying up and down the keyboard through octaves, runs and glissandos. What sets her apart from other performers (and there have been several run-throughs of this concerto recently) was the sublime sense of musicality that permeated her entire performance. Even at breakneck speed, she took time to shape the whiz-bang sections and her meditative variations in the second movement were played with elegant, pearly tones. As one audience member said at intermission, “She’s more than a dress.” That she is!

Conlon took extreme care to collaborate as smoothly as possible with Wang and the orchestra, which played wonderfully and earns extra plaudits for being locked into Conlon’s tempo shifts that were necessary to accommodate the soloist. Lorin Levee’s wistful clarinet solo got things off to a scintillating start.

After intermission, Conlon and Co. gave an unhurried, majestic reading of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7. Conlon conducted without a score and connected the last three movements without pause. Under his steady hand, the performance that seemed to unfold naturally without any attempt to make the work more than it is. The orchestra, which had several principal players on vacation, delivered a first-rate performance, although there were a few moments where the ensemble’s customary rhythmic precision seemed to be lacking (those will probably evaporate in the next two concerts). Nonetheless, overall it proved to be a satisfying conclusion to an excellent program.
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Hemidemisemiquavers:
• Sinfonia da Requiem has quite a history, as Herbert Glass relates in his program notes (LINK). For reasons that no one seems to be able to explain, the Japanese commissioned Britten in 1940 to write a symphony for ceremonies celebrating the 2,600th anniversary of the emperor of Japan. What made this request unique (foolish?) was that Britten was an avowed pacifist while Japan was by then three years into a bloody war with China and was becoming an axis partner with Nazi Germany.

Britten wrote what amounts to a lament, with titles — Lacrymosa, Dies Irae and Requiem aeterna — (pre-approved, inexplicably, by the Japanese government) taken from the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead, although the work has no obvious religious overtones. Nearly a quarter-century later, Britten would merge the Mass texts with words from poet Wilfred Owen to create his “magnum opus,” War Requiem, as part of the consecration of the newly rebuilt Coventry Cathedral.

When Japan received the Sinfonia da Requiem commission, it was not pleased and an acrimonious exchange between embassies (i.e., not directly with Britten) ensued. Eventually the Japanese rejected the piece as unsuitable for a celebration and John Barbirolli and the New York Philharmonic ended up premiering the work on March 29, 1941 by at Carnegie Hall. Ironically, Britten eventually would go on to the first Japanese performance of the piece in 1956.

One other interesting note (as Glass relates): the Japanese did not request that Britten return its commissioning fee. He used it to buy his first automobile — a vintage Ford.

• Prokofiev was the soloist when the L.A. Phil first played his Piano Concerto No. 3 on February 13, 1930 with Artur Rodzinski conducting, nine years after its premiere in Chicago.

• Nathan Cole, the Phil’s first associate concertmaster who was in the first chair today, appeared to remind Conlon of the orchestra’s tradition of bowing to those seated behind the ensemble. Good catch — it’s always a nice touch.
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(c) Copyright 2011, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

Comments

[MarK]

You are very welcome, but my previous comment in this thread was not so much an "expansion" as it was a Reminder and a Clarification.

[Bob Thomas]

I think this is an "agree to disagree" moment. I think the concerto issues were a matter of conductor trying to stay in synch with the soloist, although — as I wrote — the orchestra did a great job of staying with the tempo changes.

[Bob Thomas]

I don't think I was saying this would be a first "War Requiem" for Disney Hall, only that it's a great piece for Disney. But thanks for the expansion.

[MarK]

You are writing here as if Britten's War Requiem was never performed in the Walt Disney Concert Hall. But it most certainly was - about four years ago in late January 2008, by the LA Phil and assorted singers, conducted by Lorin Maazel.

[musician]

There is NOTHING steady about his hand. He almost trainwrecked the orchestra 3 times in the concerto. Considering what was going on at the podium, the Dvorak was a miracle in that it went as well as it did. He definitely didn't deserve a performance like that. The orchestra saved his butt, end of story.