New York — It was a quiet, whereas not fairly silent, morning for the “Desk of Silence Mission” Thursday, on the plaza of Lincoln Middle and in entrance of David Geffen Corridor, dwelling of the New York Philharmonic. Commemorating the twenty fourth anniversary of 9/11, white-robed members of the Buglisi Dance Theatre circled the plaza, just a few with megaphones for chants, an occasional violin becoming a member of in, mellowing even the sounds of background visitors roaring down busy Broadway.
On this solemn however lovely New York day and after greater than two years in ready, Gustavo Dudamel took cost, not less than in observe, of the New York Philharmonic. Six a long time in the past, in the course of the Leonard Bernstein period, America’s oldest and most celebrated orchestra had town’s (and far of the nation’s) full consideration in a method it hasn’t since. May that occur once more?
When Dudamel introduced in early February 2023 that he would go away the Los Angeles Philharmonic to change into music and inventive director of the New York Philharmonic within the fall of 2026, he grew to become on the spot superstar information right here. A New York Philharmonic participant provides Dudamel a cheesecake, and the New York Instances writes a narrative.
This season Dudamel features his first official title: music and inventive director designate. However the orchestra is principally his child now. His photograph is plastered on the orchestra’s posters and publicity. And on Thursday night time, Dudamel, for the primary time, opened the New York Philharmonic’s new season. After two weeks this month, he may have a large presence later winter and in spring, whereas additionally closing out his final L.A. Phil season with main applications.
Dudamel arrived in New York on Tuesday, having spent two weeks conducting the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela, his homeland orchestra, to open Coldplay’s concert events at Glastonbury in England, simply because the newly named U.S. Division of Battle instantly started to dwell as much as its title by sending warships to Dudamel’s native Venezuela and threatening regime change.
However right here in New York, Dudamel paid tribute to a brand new metropolis in his life with Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 2. In 1945, Bartók, having fled Nazi-invaded Hungary, wrote his last piano concerto in a New York house on 57th Road, a block west of Carnegie Corridor. Bernstein led the New York Philharmonic premiere of Ives’ Second — the primary nice American symphony — at Carnegie, then the New York Philharmonic’s dwelling, six years later.
Nonetheless, the primary orchestral sounds that emanated from the Dudamel designated directorship turned out to be barely heard, whereas not silent, percussion stirrings. Following a season-opening custom he started when he grew to become music director of the L.A. Phil, Dudamel started this system with a world premiere.
For this, he directed New Yorkers’ consideration westward. In “of sunshine and stone,” Leilehua Lanzilotti units the sonic stage for an evocation of Hawaii, the place she resides, earlier than statehood. She makes references to King Kalakaua, Queen Lili’uokalani and different Hawaiian the Aristocracy few in a mainland viewers are prone to know. There are fragments of Hawaiian music, a dance of the wind.
Nothing settles on this four-part, 15-minute music of a land, a rating that falls someplace between historical past lesson and color-field sonic panorama. A whisp of a canorous clarinet or a rumbling rattle is all it takes for a type of on the spot transport to a far-off time and place. New York Philharmonic audiences will be cool, however they’ve demonstratively taken to Dudamel at Geffen, and an ethereal efficiency appeared to open ears.
The younger Korean pianist, Yunchan Lim, who grew to become immediately sizzling after profitable the Van Cliburn competitors three years in the past, was soloist in Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto. Lim might be a soloist with Dudamel and the L.A. Phil this season in addition to give a solo recital in Walt Disney Live performance Corridor. He’s an distinctive pianist. He too opens ears and may transport a listener to a distant land. And Lim’s case is much extra distant or far much less knowable than Hawaii.
Lim’s Bartók exists in a world of the pianist’s personal. Each phrase is for him an oddity, as if he had discovered some bizarre object in an imaginary world and was determining what he would possibly do with it. His instruments have been rhythm, accents and dynamics, every a unusual new toy. The New York Philharmonic produced magnificence and pleasure, however Lim went his personal method that wasn’t fairly imaginative sufficient to enhance on Bartók. Right here we go once more with an distinctive younger soloist being pushed into the limelight too quickly.
The New York Philharmonic owns Ives’ Second. Written within the first decade of the twentieth century, the symphony provided a complete new mind-set about American and European music and it sat dormant for some 4 a long time earlier than Bernstein premiered it. However that 1951 efficiency had an enormous impact on the right way to rework folks music, common music, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and what-not, twisted, reworked and tacked collectively. Bernstein later recorded it twice with the New York Philharmonic. The primary time stuffed with beans that revived it for good. The second time in 1987 as an excellent religious train. Listening to that efficiency dwell left me in a state of rapture.
Dudamel has made a specialty of the symphony himself, conducting it with the Vienna Philharmonic, recording it with the L.A. Phil and now going to the supply. His efficiency Thursday night time didn’t attempt to comply with in Bernstein’s footsteps or essentially Dudamel’s personal. The efficiency flowed with beautiful lyricism and mustered an exciting finale.
In Vienna, Dudamel was extra strong. At Disney, Dudamel discovered distinctive expression in each little element. That was the Dudamel that we final noticed on the Hollywood Bowl this summer time when he performed Mahler’s First extra vividly than ever.
That’s not, fairly but, the Dudamel for New York. Right here his Ives gave the impression to be laying the groundwork, letting his new orchestra present him what it might probably do earlier than he begins, as he certainly will, digging deeper.
It took a as soon as controversial effort for Bernstein to rework an uptight virtuosic New York Philharmonic into a good however electrical one. Now it’s Dudamel’s flip for transmogrification, and he’s made a promising starting.
