Dudamel Leads a Premiere by a Youthful Ravel. Not Bad for a Kid.
He died almost a century ago, after all. And while some previously unknown works have come to light over the years, it happens considerably less than once in a blue moon.
So my pen was out and alert on Thursday at the New York Philharmonic's delightful concert at David Geffen Hall, practically vibrating with the opportunity to be among the first to weigh in on a piece by the creator of some of music's most enduring and gorgeous classics.
The work that the Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, its incoming music director, were playing, part of a program celebrating Ravel's 150th birthday, was long assumed to be lost. Written around 1900, when Ravel was still a conservatory student stormily at odds with the musical establishment, the score for selections from a cantata called 'Sémiramis' turned up at an auction in 2000, when it entered the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
An entry in the diary of one of the composer's friends, the pianist Ricardo Viñes, indicates that it was played, probably as a class exercise, in 1902. ('It is very beautiful,' Viñes wrote.) There's no record of it being performed in public between then and Thursday.
Grave and gloomy, bronzed by the low luster of a gong, the first section rises to the dramatic punch of an opera overture. The music then accelerates into a gaudy Orientalist dance that looks back to the Bacchanale from Saint-Saëns's 'Samson et Dalila' and the 'Polovtsian Dances' of Borodin, one of the Russian masters Ravel adored.
This 'Prélude et Danse' is over in five minutes. (The third surviving section, for tenor and orchestra, will be premiered in Paris in December.) The piece is most intriguing as a preview of what was to come: For one thing, Ravel divides the string sections into multiple parts to increase the complexity of the textures, a technique he would use in later masterpieces like 'Daphnis et Chloé.'
The Suite No. 2 from 'Daphnis' followed the little chunk of 'Sémiramis.' This was clever programming, but it came together just a few days ago. The star pianist Yuja Wang, the Philharmonic's artist in residence this season, was supposed to join the orchestra for both of Ravel's piano concertos, but dropped out because of a health issue.
Dudamel and the orchestra traded out the concertos for two Ravel suites, 'Daphnis' and the exquisite 'Mother Goose.' The Ravel pieces were bookended by Varèse's industrial-size 'Amériques' and Gershwin's jazzy chestnut 'An American in Paris,' for what ended up being an excellent immersion in the first three decades of the 20th century.
With well over 100 players, 'Amériques' begins plaintively, like Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring,' but gears up fast into the first of a long series of granitic explosions, with a siren periodically wailing. Powerful but not blaring, the Philharmonic conveyed the work's elemental force.
On this program, you were more aware than usual of Varèse's subtlety and range of colors, as in the languid alto flute at the start that reached across the concert to connect with the great flute solo in 'Daphnis.' In the jeweled atmosphere of the quiet parts of 'Amériques,' like the steady beat in the harp and celesta as muted brasses wandered, there was a sensual suavity not so far from the fairy tale fragrance of 'Mother Goose.'
The Philharmonic played both Ravel suites with just the right delicate freshness, and Dudamel's tempos felt natural: unpressured yet never sluggish. The different sections of the orchestra were balanced with poise, as in the oboe just peeking out from behind the silky violins in the second section of 'Mother Goose.'
The final dance in 'Daphnis' had, in the context of this program, a ferocity that recalled Varèse. And 'An American in Paris,' which usually comes across as blithe, was quite different, its brassiness more relentless, its structure almost as arbitrary-feeling as that of 'Amériques.' As with any good musical pairing, the shift in perception went both ways: Varèse's urbanity suddenly seemed a little more cheerful, Gershwin's a little more brutal.
Coherently programmed and terrifically played, the evening was a showcase for big sounds and repertory staples. If the brief 'Prélude et Danse' from 'Sémiramis' got a bit lost in the shuffle, it still offered a glimpse of a rising star.
My report? Not bad for a kid.
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Los Angeles Times
16 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Who can follow Dudamel at the Bowl? Daniil and Daniel with a little help from Rachmaninoff
The obvious fact that Gustavo Dudamel is a hard act to follow is something that has been concerning for the Los Angeles Philharmonic the last two and a half years. Dudamel has but one more season as music and artistic director before moving on to the New York Philharmonic, and the search for a new music director remains ongoing, the L.A. Phil clearly carefully taking the time to get it right. In the meantime, interesting, predictable and unpredictable, stuff happens as it has lately at the Hollywood Bowl. Dudamel made the hard-act-to-follow business nearly an impossible act to follow during the first of what was supposed to be his two weeks at the Bowl this month. He had to cancel his second week, which was to have featured the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, thanks to new U.S. government travel restrictions for the Venezuelan orchestra. The L.A. Phil filled in with two talented conductors who were Dudamel fellows and are now enjoying prospering careers, Elim Chan and Gemma New. 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Two years ago, the pianist and Dudamel presented a Rachmaninoff festival at Walt Disney Concert Hall that resulted in a bestselling and well-deserved award-winning recording of the composer's four piano concertos and 'Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini.' The set also proved direct competition with the widely hailed one by the Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov with the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. This week at the Bowl is Rachmaninoff week, with Trifonov performing two concertos (Nos. 2 and 3) and British conductor Daniel Harding leading the Second Symphony. A 22-year-old Trifonov made his L.A. debut in 2013 at the Bowl in Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. A dozen years later the Russian pianist who now lives in New York is a star whose playing can be compared with Rachmaninoff's own. Rachmaninoff played his Second Concerto at the Hollywood Bowl in 1942. Suffering poor health, he had moved to Beverly Hills that May and died the following March. 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Los Angeles Times
07-08-2025
- Los Angeles Times
Gustavo Dudamel is briefly, joyously back at the Bowl with the L.A. Phil
Tuesday night, Gustavo Dudamel was back at the Hollywood Bowl. This summer is the 20th anniversary of his U.S. debut — at 24 years old — conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and becoming irrepressibly besotted with the amphitheater. He walked on stage, now the proud paterfamilias with greying hair and a broad welcoming smile on his face as he surveyed the nearly full house. The weather was fine. The orchestra, as so very few orchestras ever do, looked happy. For Dudamel, his single homecoming week this Bowl season began Monday evening conducting his beloved Youth Orchestra Los Angeles as part of the annual YOLA National Festival, which brings kids from around the country to the Beckmen YOLA Center in Inglewood. But it is also a bittersweet week. Travel issues (no one will say exactly what, but we can easily guess) have meant the cancellation of his Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela's trip to the Bowl next week. Dudamel will also be forced to remain behind with them in Caracas. After 20 years, Dudamel clearly knows what works at the Bowl, but he also likes to push the envelope as with Tuesday's savvy blend of Duke Ellington and jazzy Ravel. The soloist was Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho, whose recent recording of Ravel's complete solo piano works along with his two concertos, has been one of the most popular releases celebrating the Ravel year (March 7 was the 150th anniversary of the French composer's birth). Ellington and Ravel were certainly aware of each other. When Ravel visited New York in 1928, he heard the 29-year-old Ellington's band at the Cotton Club, although his attention on the trip was more drawn to Gershwin. Ellington knew and admired Ravel, and Billy Strayhorn, who was responsible for much of Ellington's music, was strongly drawn to Ravel's harmony and use of instrumental color. On his return to Paris, Ravel wrote his two piano concertos, the first for the left hand alone, and jazz influences were strong. Cho played both concertos, which were framed by the symphonic tone poems 'Harlem' and 'Black, Brown and Beige, which Ellington called tone parallels. There has been no shortage of Ravel concerto performance of late — or ever — but Ellington is another matter. Although the pianist, composer and band leader was very much on the radar of the classical world — 'Harlem' was originally intended for Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony; Leopold Stokowski attended the Carnegie Hall premiere of 'Black, Brown and Beige,' as did Eleanor Roosevelt, Marian Anderson and Frank Sinatra — Ellington never played the crossover game. The NBC 'Harlem' never panned out and became a big-band score. Ever practical, Ellington, who composed mostly in wee hours after gigs, always wrote for the occasion and the players. He tended to leave orchestration to others, more concerned with highlighting the fabulous improvising soloists in his band. The scores, moreover, were gatherings, developments and riffs on various existing songs. 'Harlem' is an acoustical enrapturement of the legendary Harlem Renaissance and one of the great symphonic portraits of a place in the repertory. 'Black, Brown and Beige' is an ambitious acoustical unfolding of the American Black narrative, from African work songs to spiritual exaltation with 'Come Sunday' (sung by Mahalia Jackson at the premiere) to aspects of Black life, in war and peace, up to the Harlem Renaissance. Both works are best known today, if nonetheless seldom heard, in the conventional but effective orchestrations by Maurice Peress and are what Dudamel relies on. The version of 'Black, Brown and Beige' reduces it from 45 to 18 too-short minutes. The primary reason for these scores' neglect is that orchestras can't swing. The exception is the L.A. Phil. With Dudamel's surprising success of taking the L.A. Phil to Coachella, there now seems nothing it can't do. The time has come to commission more experimental and more timely arrangements. But even these Peress arrangements, blasted through the Bowl's sound system and with the orchestra bolstered by a jazz saxophone section, jazz drummer and other jazz-inclined players, caught the essence of one of America's greatest composers. Ravel fared less well. The left-hand concerto has dark mysteries hard to transmit over so many acres and video close-ups of two-armed pianists trying to keep the right hand out of the way can be disconcerting. This summer, in fact, unmusical jumpy video is at all times disconcerting. Ravel's jazzier, sunnier G-Major concerto is a winner everywhere. But for all Cho's acclaim in Ravel, he played with sturdy authority. Four years ago, joining Dudamel at an L.A. Phil gala in Walt Disney Concert Hall, Cho brought refined freshness to Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto. In Ravel at the Bowl, amplification strongly accentuated his polished technique, gleaming tone and meticulous rhythms, leaving it up to Dudamel and a joyous, eager orchestra to exult in the Ravel that Ellington helped make swing.
Los Angeles Times
28-07-2025
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. Phil's Gustavo Dudamel returns to the Bowl for a short concert run
The Los Angeles Philharmonic's departing music director Gustavo Dudamel will return to the Hollywood Bowl next week. Dudamel, the face of the classical music world in L.A. since his 2009 debut as music director, is in his penultimate season here before departing to lead the New York Philharmonic. Given recent federal travel bans on Venezuelans, he was forced to cancel local dates with his Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra in August, and he only had one week planned for conducting during the Bowl's summer season this year. The season's opening night at the Bowl was 'a relatively somber occasion, which, despite the lovely atmosphere, fit the mood of the times,' as Times critic Mark Swed said. So this one-week return with an exceptionally diverse bill will be a welcome occasion to see him in the twilight of his tenure in L.A. On Aug. 5, Dudamel (with pianist Seong-Jin Cho) will lead a program pulled from jazz giant Duke Ellington and French composer Maurice Ravel, including Ellington's 'Harlem' and 'Black, Brown and Beige' and Ravel's Piano Concert for the Left Hand and Piano Concert in G. The pairing will show how American jazz and the Harlem renaissance influenced and expanded possibilities for Ravel and European music of the era. He'll follow that up on Aug. 7 with Mahler's bombastic Symphony No. 1 'Titan,' with Vilde Frang playing Erich Korngold's violin concerto (a fitting spotlight on a golden-era Hollywood score legend). On Aug. 8-9, Dudamel will conduct John Williams' crowd-favorite 'Jurassic Park' score over a live screening of the summer blockbuster. Dudamel recently debuted with the L.A. Phil at Coachella, a long-awaited crossover event where the orchestra collaborated with pop stars including Dave Grohl, Zedd, Laufey and LL Cool J. For Los Angeles music fans who want to see Dudamel in the Bowl before he departs after next year's season, these are some of the best chances to do so in 2025.
