The long and short of last Thursday’s LA Phil concert with Ludovic Morlot and Emanuel Ax

January 29, 2013 Leave a comment

Emanuel Ax (photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco)Just to prove to myself that I could summarize into three bullet points my thoughts on last Thursday’s Los Angeles Philharmonic concert:

  • Emanuel Ax played Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25:  Spectacular.  Flawless.  Brilliant.  Dare I say, “Perfect.”
  • Conductor Ludovic Morlot:  Solid in Dutilleux’s The Shadows of Time and Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.
  • The orchestra:   Very good the whole night.

There, I did it.

Of course, there’s no fun in keeping things limited to three bullet points. . . .

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Five concerts, four conductors at different stages of their relationship w/ the LA Phil (part 3 of 4): Esa-Pekka Salonen then and now

December 20, 2012 1 Comment

Esa-Pekka Salonen by SONJA WERNER When Esa-Pekka Salonen comes back to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic, you expect finely polished performances of complex programs.  In two weekends of concerts earlier this month, that’s exactly what you got and then some.  E-P was in town to help the orchestra celebrate Lutosławski’s centenary, with both sets of programs featuring major works by the much-admired Polish composer.

The first weekend’s Friday performance was  probing, athletic, and rich in detail.  Lutosławski’s First Symphony, with its traditional four movement structure, sounded closer to works by Shostakovich or Bartók — or his own Concerto for Orchestra – than the Second Symphony that he would pen two decades later.  The LA Phil playing was as crisp and whip-crack precise as it could be, making it sound like old hat rather than a premiere for both orchestra and conductor.  In addition, the orchestra’s brass gave the brief but raucous Fanfare for Los Angeles Philharmonic a no-holds-barred reading that pinged brightly throughout Walt Disney Concert Hall.

That orchestra and conductor slayed the Lutosławski should shock no one.  Mr. Salonen’s relationship with the orchestra goes back almost three decades, and the chemistry between the LA Phil and its Conductor Laureate remains superb.  In fact, E-PS’s 1984 debut with the orchestra included Lutosławski’s much thornier Third Symphony, and it was on the strength of those performances that  the relationship was allowed to blossom and grow to ESP levels:   As Mr. Salonen tweeted:  ”Such a joy to be back with my old band in LA. They sound great and still somehow read my mind. Deeply touched & humbled by the experience.”

His evolving skill with Beethoven is an entirely different matter.

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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.

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LA Chamber Orchestra displays its range in outstanding season opening concert

October 9, 2012 Leave a comment

Andrew Norman, James Matheson, and Augustin Hadelich

Do you have one of those friends that are good at seemingly everything they do?  You might already know that they’re like that, but when you see them in action you always have to shake your head in surprise and admiration.

Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra are like that.

They kicked off their 2012/2013 season Saturday evening in Glendale with a generous program, featuring West Coast premieres of works by Andrew Norman and James Matheson sandwiched in between two very different concertos:  the Ravel Piano Concerto in D with Mr. Kahane conducting from the keyboard, and the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Augustin Hadelich in his LACO debut.

With its mix of different compositional styles and performance requirements, the concert gave Mr. Kahane and the orchestra a great opportunity to demonstrate the breadth of their musicality and talent.  If one had never been to a LACO concert before, I’d be hard pressed to think of a better way to become acquainted with the variety of things these musicians can do in an orchestral setting.  Taken in combination with their other series for smaller ensembles (most prominent among them are the “Baroque Conversations” downtown and innovative “Westside Connections” in Santa Monica), it was the kind of concert that shows how LACO continues to stretch the boundaries of what a traditional “chamber orchestra” can and should be.  Thank God for that.

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Going out with style: Tokyo String Quartet bids a fond farewell to Chicago

July 26, 2012 3 Comments

This past Tuesday, the Tokyo String Quartet played what first violin Martin Beaver said would almost certainly be their last concert at the Ravinia Festival.  In all likelihood, it will also be their final appearance anywhere in the Chicago area.  With Kazuhide Isomura (founding viola)  and Kikuei Ikeda (longtime second violin) deciding to retire, the whole ensemble is calling it quits after the 2012/2013 season.  It was “an evening full of meaning for us,” according to Mr. Beaver.

That I was there to experience it was a confluence of lucky events.  A week before, I didn’t know I’d be in Chicago.  The day before, I wasn’t sure if I’d be attending.  That morning, a massive thunderstorm rolled through the region, complete with hail and some not-messin’-around wind causing widespread damage and some power outages.

Around lunch time, the rain stopped, but I got a weather alert on my phone warning of “Severe Heat” with temperatures between 100 and 104 degrees with a heat index of up to 110 degrees once you factored in the humidity;  however, this turned out to be a warning for Wednesday, not the night of the concert  By the time I arrived at Ravinia around 6:30pm, the skies had cleared and the temperature was a very SoCal-like mid-70′s with moderate humidity.  Nothing would get in the way of the chance to see this concert.

Lucky me — and very lucky, too, for the near-capacity crowd inside Martin Theatre and the many others picnicking outside.  The Tokyo Quartet treated everyone to an evening that was enjoyable on so many levels.

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Of wine and white jackets, composing women and killer whales: the start of the 2012 Hollywood Bowl season

July 17, 2012 6 Comments

Composers Anna Clyne, Anne LeBaron, and Cindy McTee

It was time for musicians to break out their summer whites and for the audiences to try to not roll empty bottles of wine down concrete steps.  That’s right:  I’m talking about summer at the Hollywood Bowl.

After a few concerts of playing back-up band to Barry Manilow, the Los Angeles Philharmonic opened the classical music portion of the 2012 summer season last Tuesday in an unlikely fashion:  playing three works written by living composers — living female composers, no less. If you throw in two concerts of playing the world premiere of George Fenton’s Frozen Planet in Concert, this was a non-trivial amount of new music that the orchestra had to digest.

Granted, it wasn’t as a big a challenge as, say, playing Don Giovanni and The Gospel According to the Other Mary in short succession, but it’s not like the musicians could just put it on autopilot even if they wanted to. Considering the usual penchant for warhorses at the Cahuenga Pass combined with the limited rehearsal time in the summer, this was rather noteworthy.  And if you added in the single performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a work that can hardly be thrown together nonchalantly, it all made for a relatively ambitious and auspicious start to the Bowl season.

When everything was said and done, it all worked quite nicely, even in an environment that can be filled with  attention-deficit concertgoers, many of whom were generally unfamiliar with any contemporary classical music and only there for the Beethoven. Credit conductor Leonard Slatkin for putting together a program that gelled and for inspiring compelling performances from the orchestra.  He may not always be the easiest conductor to follow (he tends to conduct waaaay ahead of the beat), but there is clearly enough chemistry between him and the LA Phil that they can give him what he wants with equal parts precision and finesse.

It was a satisfying evening, easy to enjoy and full of musical rewards.

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Timeless like a broken watch: Marino Formenti in recital

January 9, 2012 2 Comments

“I always hated the Diabelli Variations,” writes Marino Formenti.  Coming from any other pianist, this would sound like a confession.

Marino Formenti is not “any other pianist.”

The Italian-born musician only began studying Beethoven’s meandering piano work at the recent request of Dean Corey, President and Artistic Director of the Philharmonic Society of Orange County.  The organization is in the midst of presenting all of Beethoven’s late works, and Mr. Corey is very familiar  with Mr. Formenti’s ouvre, going back to the late lamented Eclectic Orange Festival.  By bringing the new music specialist to Segerstrom Concert Hall to play this particular touchstone of Beethoven’s late period, Mr. Corey was clearly going for something a bit unexpected.

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Happy Birthday, Ludwig van Beethoven

December 16, 2011 Leave a comment

The great German composer was born on this date in 1770.  In his honor, please enjoy the iconic first movement from his Fifth Symphony, performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by the incomparable Carlo Maria Giulini.

If you typically associate Maestro Giulini with interpretations that lean towards the broad and spacious, you may be in for a (pleasant) surprise.

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Thoughts on Haitink, the New York Philharmonic, and Avery Fisher Hall

November 18, 2011 4 Comments

As previously mentioned, I made a “game day decision” last Saturday night to see Bernard Haitink conduct the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall.  Note that I listed Mr. Haitink’s name first, then the orchestra, then the hall:  chalk up the opportunity to see the legendary Dutch conductor in person for the first time as being the primary draw for me.  He could have been conducting John Cage’s 4’33″ and I probably still would have paid money for it; lucky for me,  the not-quite-warhorse “Pastoral” Symphony of Beethoven was on the bill, paired with Strauss’s Don Quixote.  Overall, it may not have been the most exciting or groundbreaking concert, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

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Orchestra programming: some are just better at it than others

June 28, 2011 Leave a comment

After spending some time chatting on Tim Mangan’s blog about how the Pacific Symphony chose to put together its 2011-2012 season, I was reminded of a little contest that Sam Bergman and Sarah Hicks of the Minnesota Orchestra decided to hold a couple of years ago.  The concept, in short, was to “put yourself in the shoes of the music director” to program five separate orchestral concert programs with the following stipulations:

  • Be innovative and forward thinking, but keep in mind that you actually have to sell tickets to the concerts
  • The five concerts should preferably not have an overarching theme
  • No more than one concert should adhere to the traditional “Overture-Concerto-Intermission-Symphony” (OCIS) format
  • Don’t piss off your musicians by your programming, or as they said:  ”Exhibit A:  ask 100 orchestra musicians what they think about playing film scores instead of Beethoven”

They made a number of positive references to Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Phil, and given my affinity with what the local band had been doing, I figured I’d toss my hat in the ring.  After mulling a variety of options and making efforts to keep in mind the rules above, I submitted my entry along with 20 other people, and . . .

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