A case of musical ADD: Andsnes and Dudamel headline latest LA Phil concert, but news of deMaine creates the biggest buzz
October 11, 2012 1 Comment
The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s second week of concerts in the 2012/2013 season was clearly meant to be a contrast from the first. After having regaled us all with a sparkling world premiere of Symphony by Steven Stucky and a romp through the modernist machinations of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), Gustavo Dudamel decided to go old school with an all-Beethoven set of concerts:
- Mr. Dudamel and orchestra would be taking their first shot together at the expansive Third Symphony (the “Eroica”).
- For good measure, he and the orchestra invited the formidable Norwegian pianist, Leif Ove Andsnes, to join them in not just one, but two of Beethoven’s piano concertos: the first and third.
That was certainly the draw going into the concerts, and the results thereof should have been the big story coming out of them. This is not the way it turned out.
Don’t get me wrong: the concert itself was a success, with Messers. Dudamel and Andsnes each bringing a different — but not incompatible — approach to Beethoven; however, when the weekend was done, all of the talk was about a less well-known (but ultimately just as important) musician that was also on stage at Walt Disney Concert Hall that weekend — Robert deMaine.
Clearly, Mahler was a guy who liked to think and compose about death. Musical allusions to it show up in all of his works being performed as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Mahler Project” (some may quibble about Songs of the Wayfarer, but if you’re singing about putting a red-hot knife in your breast, I think it counts). Death manifests itself differently in each of his symphonies, with the Ninth typically being referred to as Mahler’s farewell to life, especially in the work’s final movement. Whether the musical adieu is intended to be a melancholy one or not is a matter of interpretation.
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