A Y
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Talk about recent classical music concerts you've attended. To start it off, I just heard the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel conduct a program of Salonen's LA Variations, Lou Harrison's piano concerto with pianist Marino Formenti, and John Adams's City Noir at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Dudamel's interpretation of LA Variations is quite different than Salonen's: everything's more vivid --- the rhythms, textures, and melodies, but I don't think this is music for the ages. It's sounding a bit hackneyed on a second listen. The best and worst thing I can say about City Noir is that it mostly doesn't sound like Adams --- he's moving away from his Minimalist roots --- but it seemed like a discombobulated mess, which ironically may accurately reflect Los Angeles, which it's supposed to be about. Harrison's piano concerto was the revelation here: friendly, tuneful, and eclectic in its musical influences, it's basically a rejection of modernism in music to good effect. The Stampede 2nd movement was my favorite: a funky, exciting, rhythmic dialogue between the piano and the percussion section had the pianist alternate very quickly and fluidly between clusters and normal playing. He'd use his whole palm to play clusters of notes, and at times his entire forearm. The transition between clusters and individual notes was seamless and articulate. It always amazes me when I hear things like this how composers imagine things like this in their heads. Here's a picture of the elbow action from the LA Times review:
If you know the 3rd movement of the Barber piano concerto, the Stampede movement was like a big expansion of the cluster playing in the Barber. Very cool to hear other influences like Brahms in the Harrison as well. This concert was part of their West Coast, Left Coast festival, and the orchestra eschewed their normal formal wear for the oh-so-hip open-neck black shirts, black jackets and slacks. And to catch up from the past couple of weeks: an amazing Verdi Requiem with extra-apocolyptic bass drums with the LA Phil/Dudamel, and the LA Master Chorale. This is basically a little opera disguised as a requiem --- that the ridiculously over-the-top Dies Irae is repeated 3 times kind of proves the point. An organ concert in WDCH with Jean Guillou playing several things, including his transcription of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, well-known to bass-loving audiophiles through Guillou's Dorian recording. Next week: John Adams conducts the LA Phil in various things, including his Dharma at Big Sur with Leila Josefowicz playing the 6-string electric violin in it. One of my recent favorite pieces, especially its rhapsodic 2nd movement. --Andre