GUSTAVO DUDAMEL: EL VENEZOLANO VERITABLE
                     L.A. Philharmonic Finding a Magic Touch 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of May 11-18, 2010
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 99
            The Los Angeles Philharmonic bringing Berkeley composer John Adams’ music to the Bay Area is like bringing coals to Newcastle, particularly since Adams himself was away on the East Coast on musical assignments and unable to hear it or take a bow. 
            But the performance of Adams’ “City Noir” was very significant nonetheless. Putting aside the longtime SF-LA rivalry, the Philharmonic had tapped Adams as its Creative Chair to mark the inaugural of new Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, 29, (!) and then commissioned his “City Noir” (2009) to round out his California triptych of works.  As further icing on the cake, the 33-minute “City Noir” for large orchestra was the lead piece on the eight-city US tour begun the night of May 10  at Davies Symphony Hall.
            No, I cannot remotely visualize a San Francisco group doing the same with a Los Angeles composer.
            But credit the fascinating, lively conductor from Venezuela for clearing the air and having the courage to spotlight something very modern for tour audiences more likely to want Mozart or Schubert or Barber when they line up for tickets. Dudamel’s bet paid off, as the concert was already sold out the week before, and a scalper---an overnight Adams groupie/convert?---was conscientiously working the sidewalk just before concert time.
            Adams’ knotty, exuberant music all but burst Davies’ walls with its effusiveness. His piece attempts to capture the immense variety that is Los Angeles, featuring the chameleon-like versatility for which Adams, 62, is noted. It’s the oversize mosaic of a complex metropolis. His “City” sets off rambunctiously, with activity that is feisty, noisy, brassy, then turns to hot jazz led by keyboards and an alto sax man standing up for the solo work, just as in the jazz clubs. The agitated energy in the music is colossal. This gives way to serene string passages playing an almost endless lyrical theme, as if an oasis in a hardy saguaro-&-prickly-pear desertscape. The moods shift to a crescendoing motoristic drive with glints of Adams’ old chugga-chugga rhythms, and percussion coming from an augmented team of seven players (!). After solos of trumpet and trombone, a jazz finale is ever more agitated, with a surprise cutoff in place of a cadence  marking the ending.
            Adams’ recent restless music is not easy listening, but it is engrossing in its variances, assuming you can follow most of the tightly intertwined threads and rhythmic shifts. I admire that “gnarliness”  more than I love it. He has the gift to stimulate in a highly original and moderately dissonant manner, suggesting modes of composition that may consolidate in future works by a much wider circle of composers. And each time, I await enthusiastically his next venture.
            Dudamel, the dazzling and diminutive dynamo, led it with immense gusto, keeping a crack orchestra (actually rated even higher than the S.F. Symphony in a Gramophone magazine evaluation a couple of years ago) on its toes, while his own occasionally lost all contact with Planet Earth in his podium bounces. This is a newcomer who knows his music, loves it, and conveys it with enthusiasm. 
            I was even more impressed with Dudamel’s interpretation of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. With his constant ebb and flow in tempo and dynamics, he broke away from modern trends and recalled the free-spirited conducting of Leonard Bernstein and, by some reliable accounts, composer-conductor Mahler himself a century ago. It was like a trip on the swells of the Pacific Ocean, from that extraordinary start where the sound gradually and mysteriously appears out of total silence in a unique way. His reading, played from memory, was enormously exciting, giving new meaning to the neglected term rubato. The finale, with the paired booms of two timpani virtuosos, were enough to waken the dead and to pound on the pearly gates for admittance. The brass section was particularly adept. 
            What was all too evident in the Adams was the musicians of the large orchestra being squeezed like sardines on a stage that was clearly too small---certainly smaller than that of Disney Hall in L.A. Still, the ensemble played with great responsiveness and efficiency.
            Dudamel got through it too, despite the severe muscle pull he suffered last week, which dictated immediate rest before resuming his allegro pace of life the next day. His appearance on the wild side had also been tamed since his last guesting appearances here, now marked by a haircut to tame his near-Afro, and formal podium attire to boot.
            Encores followed the concert in response to the wild crowd accolades, most notably the Act Three Intermezzo of Puccini's opera "Manon Lescaut."
            The concert was under auspices of the S.F. Symphony’s Great Performances series.
            Los Angeles Philharmonic, under Music Director Gustavo Dudamel, in tour concerts May 10-11 at Davies Hall, S.F. For info: (415) 864-6000, or go online.

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2010
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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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