Intermezzo

Gustavo Dudamel drives Berlin Philharmonic to the edge

Berliner Philharmoniker / Dudamel / Viktoria Mullova - Philharmonie Berlin, 7 March 2009

Arnold Böcklin - Die Toteninsel

Rachmaninov Isle of the Dead; Stravinsky Violin Concerto; Prokofiev Symphony No. 5

Gustavo Dudamel has moved way, way beyond playing samba with kids, even if British press reviews don't always reflect this. Even if his abilities didn't always match his ambitions, this all-Russian programme proved that he deserved to be handed the keys to the Aston Martin of orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic.

Relentlessly rolling rhythm and the growling basses of the Berlin Phil married in a dark and brooding reading of Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead (inspired by the painting above). The moments of repose were too few and too restless to provide the necessary structural contrast, but this journey can rarely  have been made with such propulsive urgency.

Dudamel remained at sea in a different sense with Stravinsky's Violin Concerto. It was the only time he used a score all night - a misbehaving mini-version that wouldn't lie flat. There was little to suggest he'd seen the work before ever in his life (despite having played it here the two previous nights). He seemed reluctant to impose anything beyond a tempo on its spare classical lines.

And there was no sense of collaboration or interplay with the soloist, Viktoria Mullova. She seemed even more buried in the score than he did, and it was hard to escape the impression she was sight-reading. Like many in the audience, not to mention several members of the orchestra, I diverted my attention to the fascinating flexion of the impressive Madonna-muscled arms and back revealed by her airy origami-parachute frock.

But Dudamel redeemed himself and then some with his storming Prokofiev. And this time, no score. Pinpoint-precise playing anchored the outrageous exuberance. He may have sidelined some of the work's inherent complexity and contradictions, but you couldn't wish for a more confident and vibrant reading. The orchestra played out of their skins for him and rose as one the second it was over. Those who complain that Dudamel doesn't shape work as a whole have a point of sorts, but they're missing another one. Dudamel at his best lives and plays absolutely in the moment - and it's an intense and exhilirating ride, if you're open to it.

Dudamel is called back for about his 10th bow (no kidding) - orchestra have already gone home:

***********************************

flip over for more photos............

Gustavo Dudamel in rehearsal with the Philharmonia

Given that the Philharmonia's Saturday evening concert with Gustavo Dudamel and Emanuel Ax sold out weeks in advance, I was surprised at the sparse attendance for the final rehearsal earlier in the day. Perhaps people aren't aware that the Philharmonia open some of their rehearsals to the public (the list is here) for a very reasonable £3. (The LSO do too - here's the next one - but the LPO are more secretive.)

Not that rehearsals are a complete substitute for the real thing, but at the very least you gain some insight into the way a conductor works and what he thinks about a piece. I struck lucky here. Dudamel knew the work (Mahler 5 and Mozart's Piano Concerto no 17) so well a score was unnecessary. And the Philharmonia were clearly well-drilled too, only the pizzicato viola sounding completely unrehearsed. All that was needed was to align minds at a few key points.

Dudamel took each movement of the Mahler straight, then went back through a staggering number of individual points he'd somehow managed to retain in his head. He doesn't talk much, but he does sing plenty: "is like di-di-da-da-da-DA-DA-di - yes! more DA-DA-DA!" As he bounced around the podium in a bright orange jumper, his enthusiasm could not have failed to touch every single member of that orchestra. And yet he proved the received wisdom that he's fuelled by passion alone is quite wrong-headed. His tweaks were specific and sensible, with instructions like reducing vibrato or volume directed at balance and textural clarity.

The Mozart seemed so polished it barely needed rehearsing, but of course it got one anyway, with Emanuel Ax adding plenty of (sadly inaudible) comments at each break.

I only took a couple of pictures - mostly because a couple of professional photographers were there taking loads from all angles. With luck they may turn up on the Philharmonia website at some point.

What's on in London in February

David McVicar brings his chipolata-stuffed Rigoletto back to the Royal Opera House on 10 February.  Star-power is limited to veterans Leo Nucci and Paolo Gavanelli sharing the title role but this is Verdi at his most unbreakable so that's all it needs. We wait eagerly to see what Francesco Meli and Ekaterina Siurina can make of the Duke and Gilda. More Ekaterina in recital at St John's Smith Square on 20 February.

George Benjamin's highly-praised shortie Into the Little Hill gets its long-awaited London premiere in the Linbury Studio on 14 February. It's coupled with Birtwistle's Down by the Greenwood Side. Still no casting details on the ROH site, whatever that means.

But the major event of the month at Covent Garden is the premiere of Tim Albery's new production of Der fliegende Holländer on 23 February with Bryn 'teh Chin' Terfel as the Dutchman.

At ENO, Jonathan Miller's new La Bohème opens tomorrow. And you are duly warned that John Adams's irredeemably dim-witted Dr Atomic, which I saw in New York last autumn (well the first half anyway: I walked out at the interval) arrives on 25 February. On the plus side, it has a far better production and cast than the material deserves.

Opera Holland Park slip through the park gates and catch the 391 to Richmond Theatre where from 24 February the simple country folk can enjoy their brilliant Tosca from last summer. There are two casts - Amanda Echalaz, the best Tosca in town, sings on 25 and 27 February and 1 March.

The Barbican presents Handel's oratorio Samson on 12 February, for which The Sixteen are joined by a terrific line of of soloists including Mark Padmore, Gillian Keith, Catherine Wyn-Rogers and Roderick Williams. And on 22 and 23 February, the LSO record Berlioz's Te Deum with Sir Colin Davis

Wigmore Hall's bargain-priced 4 o'clock Sunday song recitals continue with two artists on the brink of major careers - Jacques Imbrailo on 15 February and Lucy Crowe on 22 February.

On 21 February Gustavo Dudamel makes an eagerly-awaited return to London, where he conducts the Philharmonia in Mahler's 5th at the Royal Festival Hall.

And at the same place tomorrow night, 4 February Matthias Goerne joins Neeme Jarvi and the LPO for Mahler's Kindertotenlieder coupled with a purist-agitating rarity - Mahler's arrangement of Beethoven's 9th. There's a free talk at 6.15 for anyone who's interested in the background to this fascinating molestation. The photo below shows Mahler conducting Beethoven's 9th in Strasbourg in 1905.

This our tempo! Gustavo Dudamel pwns Edinburgh, pwns Proms

Edinburgh Festival: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra / Dudamel - Usher Hall, 12 August 2008

Prom 37: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra / Dudamel / Martin Fröst - Royal Albert Hall, 13 August 2008

Edinburgh:
Copland Appalachian Spring
Ravel La Valse
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

London:
Ravel La Valse 
Anders Hillborg Clarinet Concerto (Peacock Tales)
Berlioz Symphonie fantastique

What proves that the Dudamel effect is not just the creation of a vampiric media, rejuvenating their tired old classical music coverage with fresh young blood, is that he achieves astonishing results with every orchestra he shakes his stick at.

Here was a case in point. The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra - professional, refined, elegant - and about as exciting as a secondhand Volvo. But for two nights in a row - and with a long, tiring train ride (and I know, I did it myself) in between - they set an audience alight with their passion and fervour.

In Edinburgh on Tuesday, Appalachian Spring was sprung with the chill vigour of a sleigh ride. La Valse skirled and lurched drunkenly. The Symphonie Fantastique was delivered with the uninhibited inyerface brashness that for once could make you appreciate why it so scandalised and horrified its original audiences. Berlioz would have wept with joy.

I was left with an agonising decision - whether to hang around for an encore, or dash off through the rainy night to my next appointment (a Gabriela Montero late night recital, of which more later). I escaped, and found later I'd missed the two encores the ecstatic audience had demanded.

But luckily there was no such dilemma on Proms night. After the final wild fugue of the Fantastique, and the thunderous applause, the temperature was lowered with the sombre, hymn-like Sangen by by Swedish composer Stenhammar.

And then two minutes later the roof blew off the Albert Hall with a Latin stomp, Tico Tico, that rivalled the Simon Bolivar Orchestra's rendition at last year's Proms. Complete with the never-before-seen spectacle of the middle-aged sensible Swedish brass section tossing their jackets aside and leaping to their feet with their horns in the air.

But there had already been one encore. This came at the end of the first half. Martin Fröst's staggeringly virtuosic reading of Hillborg's (he turned up at the end to take a bow) Clarinet Concerto (complete with masked dance-mime and spooky lighting) was followed by a klezmer-style arrangement that showed off his skills in yet another light. Is he the best clarinettist in the world right now? Probably.

It should be pointed out, for those who care about such things, that I was sitting inches from the front at the Edinburgh concert, the sort of distance where you can hear every violin individually, and there was not a note out of place in the string section.

Sitting just behind the orchestra in the choir stalls at the Prom, I was impressed too by the calibre of the percussion playing. The whole programme was a mighty test of percussion skills, from the fiendish toms in the Hillborg to the massive bells at the end of the Fantastique. Woodwind intonation varied, but you couldn't accuse Dudamel (as some have done)of not knowing his technical stuff.

The Prom is available on the BBC iPlayer, here, for the next seven days. And the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra have a blog  - in Swedish - with some great photos, here.

Edinburgh:

Gustavo Dudamel and Martin Frost:

 

Martin Frost:

Swedish brass do a twirl:

 

  

Gergiev does Mahler; Dudamel does a dance

LSO / Gergiev - Barbican, 5 June 2008
Philharmonia / Dudamel / Shaham - Royal Festival Hall, 8 June 2008

When I started this blog I promised myself I'd write about every performance I attended. Time has a way of defeating the best of intentions, but in the spirit of completeness I'll just catch up briefly on this pair of baffling performances from two of the most idiosyncratic conductors around.

You can't accuse Valery Gergiev of inconsistency. For this last concert in his Gergiev's Mahler™ cycle with the LSO, the Ninth Symphony coupled with the Adagio from the unfinished Tenth, he blistered forward with the same seat-of-the-pants drive he's displayed throughout the series.

I'm not sure adagios are meant to be that reckless, ländlers that turbulent, but it's undeniably riveting stuff. Lest anyone raise the old no-rehearsal issue, a scattering of precision-schooled climaxes proved that the requisite homework had been completed.

It's music making that lives in the moment, it speaks to the heart rather than the head, and standing back and thinking too hard might have highlighted some curiously back-to-front orchestral balance in places, the lack of measure in tempos. Bizarre but thrilling, and rapturously received by an exceptionally attentive and well-behaved audience. And congratulations to the LSO for (literally) sweating it out in the sub-tropical temperatures of the apparently non-airconditioned Barbican Hall.

 

And if anyone was going to top that, it would have to be Gustavo Dudamel. He whizzed the Philharmonia through Smetana's Overture to The Bartered Bride, found the perfect partner for Dvorak's Violin Concerto in the exuberant but lyrical Gil Shaham, and finished up in blockbuster style with Tchaikovsky's Fifth. 

When a performance is delivered with such rampant joy in music making, it's impossible to criticise. Dudamel jiggles like a battery-operated muppet, his full-body conducting channelling every rhythm, his woefully tuneless bathtub singalong uninhibited in its madness.

Yet it's no sideshow act -  the Philharmonia played with flair and precision, their characteristic lush, warm string sound the base of perfectly balanced textures. And there was no lack of thoughtfulness in the repose of the Dvorak Adagio or the grace of the Tchaikovsky Valse.

A truly special performance that left every single member of the audience with a smile on their face - and how many times does that happen?

 

Venezuelans invade Albert Hall, Prommers surrender

Prom 48: Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/Dudamel - Royal Albert Hall, 19 August 2007

Shostakovich Symphony No. 10 in E minor Bernstein West Side Story - Symphonic Dances Latin American works including music by Revueltas and Ginastera

Tonight's concert presents a tough act for the rest of the Proms season to follow. It's hard to see how anyone could top it for musicality, intensity and sheer excitement. Dudamel simply grabbed the audience and held us in his thrall.

Shostakovich's tricky 10th was a brave choice to open with. Its incredibly subtle first movement is simply boring in the wrong hands. But Dudamel made it ebb and flow - verrrry slowly - with sensitivity and immaculate technical control. He allowed in space for reflection, time to appreciate its delicate colours.

In the violent second movement we saw the full extent of the orchestra's powers as they thundered through it. With around 200 members, it was a mighty sound. And it drew out something very special and different about this orchestra. They really feel the music, physically, right down to their toes, as they play. They rocked and swayed like sailors on a stormy sea, from violins to basses, in counterpoint to Dudamel's muppet flailings.

This brief and savage interlude, painted in strong colours and bold lines, was followed by a return to introspection in the third movement, cryptic and fascinating.

It was a mature and complete reading that would have been astonishing from any orchestra, let alone such a young one.

The pace did drop a little with the Bernstein that followed the interval. Although this has its technical challenges, it is at heart banal in comparison with the Shostakovich. What little passion it has is displayed neatly on the surface, with little to unearth by repeated listening. The orchestra's response was efficient rather than intense.

The pace picked up again with the Latin American works which followed. Moncayo's Huapango and Ginastera's Estancia had flair, rhythm and above all, passion. If Dudamel's style can be characterised by extremes, then what he brought here was sheer joy.

The response had to be nothing less than a foot-stamping standing ovation, which produced the first of several storming encores. But first, the orchestra discarded the black jackets they'd arrived in:

in favour of some cunningly secreted and rather more colourful ones:

They managed some well drilled instrument-waving moves from the Tito Puente school while they were playing, and raised their instruments for applause at the end:

Although the audience would have been happy for them to go on all night, they called an end to proceedings by peeling off their jackets and tossing them into the crowd.

One got stuck in the cat's cradle of BBC recording wires:

and one found an unlikely home on a senior prommer:

(A few more photos below)

*Update - some BBC photos here.