Two Dudamels, solid and then L.A. glitzy
Be glad that you're not Gustavo Dudamel this week.
The new music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic - and easily the world's hottest young conductor - is the subject of PBS's Great Performances in a presentation that, when not devoted to actual music-making, is so embarrassing or full of hyperbole that a lesser being would hide in a locked dressing room.
Titled Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic: The Inaugural Concert, the telecast (tonight at 9 on WHYY TV12) begins with a succession of "Welcome to L.A." greetings from people on the street, each more contrived than the last, promising unprecedented diversity with the arrival of the 28-year-old Venezuelan conductor. Instead of the usual polished PBS host, actor Andy Garcia talks and looks like a used-car salesmen, peering at Dudamel over his reading glasses (a bit rude) and interrupting the bubbly, communicative conductor as if help were needed to clarify what was being said.
Seasoned PBS watchers know to shield their eyes until the show gets down to business, and when it does, Dudamel reveals his magnetic, unpretentious talent, though with unfortunate new habits that may make jaws drop and cure many communities (like Philadelphia) of Dudamel envy.
First, though, the conductor reveals solid priorities by using the concert's high visibility to premiere John Adams' City Noir, a musical portrait of the City of Angels that couldn't be better tailored for the occasion: The music embraces the city's noirish past with refracted 1950s bebop jazz, echoes of vintage movie music, fleeting ethnic influences, and wonderfully moody trombone and trumpet solos - all with a pronounced harmonic undertow.
The L.A. orchestra works its tail off in ways that will prompt renewed pronouncements about the axis of American classical music moving from east to west. Ditto for the Mahler Symphony No. 1, which climaxes the program with far better playing than much of what's been heard in the fallible live-concert downloads issued by this orchestra recently. Dudamel not only knows how to make Mahler's big melodies soar, but also finds great energy in transitional passages and secondary motifs that are normally taken for granted.
Then the second movement begins slowly and proceeds so erratically as to suggest drunken clog dancing. Though this music is among Mahler's bounciest, Dudamel keeps grinding it to a halt. Though the last two movements have nothing so outrageous, Dudamel's hyperinflected approach becomes exhausting, like Lorin Maazel at his most vulgar. Lang Lang starts looking restrained in comparison. Though I always encourage musical individuality, this performance crosses a line - a big one.
Contact music critic David Patrick Stearns at dstearns@phillynews.com.
