Classical Music Review: The LA Phil shines at Lincoln Center

Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Esa-Pekka Salonen: Pollux

Edgard Varèse: Amériques

Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47

David Geffin Hall, Lincoln Center

April 27, 2018

I was not prepared for the quality and excitement of the recent LA Phil concert. The orchestra has been widely praised for its innovative programming, community outreach, multiethnic emphasis, and embrace of contemporary composers. While a lot of its fusion/new age things are not to my taste, the LA Phil is probably doing the best job anywhere of expanding the vision of a symphony orchestra. The program at Lincoln Center exemplified this. The orchestra sounds great, with precise ensemble and great flexibility, matched by a creative, maturing conductor. The first half was very exciting, showing how the orchestra can be used as a mixing palette of tonality and rhythm. Conductor/composer Esa-Pekka Salonen has long been one of my favorite contemporary composers. He is very interested in expanding the sonic palette of what an orchestra produces, and his new piece Pollux (eventually to be paired with an extroverted Castor) was fascinating. The composer was inspired by hearing the bass line of a bass rhythm by a “post-grunge band” heard in a Paris restaurant. What emerged in this fascinating piece was rather like hearing two different gentle Debussy pieces playing simultaneously in the foreground with a thumping bass line from some outside car playing in another space. Tympani and basses were paired throughout to achieve the partially melodic bass line effect. The strings were divided in six parts, with each violin section in separate front and back stand divisions, creating a rich string-based timbre for the “foreground” effect. The piece was mostly soft, with an ending climax. It will be exciting to hear the completed two-part piece. This was followed by the early Amériques (1918-21) by French-American composer Edgard Varèse. The pairing was brilliant. Like Salonen, Varèse was interested in experimenting with orchestral timbre, and Amériques, written for large orchestra on his arrival in New York, combines urban sounds, sirens, percussive string effects, and the same sort of clustered choirs of tonality as heard in Pollux. Also present was the primal rhythmic pulsations heard in The Rite of Spring, whose premier Varèse had attended in Paris 8 years earlier. The piece is much more effective live than on record, since the tonal groupings use actual “sensurround” space shifts to add another dynamic layer, presaging pieces written by Charles Ives and composers of our century. The juxtaposition of these two pieces written a century apart was exciting and showcased the LA Phil’s virtuosity and range of dynamics.

After this exciting first half, I wanted to hear Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, which would in this setting have seemed like a foundation upon which the later composers riffed, much like modern chefs do as they add multi-ethnic ingredients to a classic French Bordelaise. Hearing other older timbre-based compositions like Debussy’s La Mer or Wagner’s Parsifal would have also been exciting. Offered instead was the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony (1937). Despite Dudamel’s interesting interpretation, marked by darkness and extreme tempo and dynamic contrasts, the piece felt as from a completely different, more conservative genre compared to the opening pieces, as if renaissance madonnas were placed side by side in a museum with Jackson Pollock abstract expressionism. The symphony’s recognizable melodies, themes that are bounced around the orchestra, and counterpoint seemed almost quaint.  

I have always found this popular symphony problematic. Shostakovich (photo above) wrote it to deflect Stalin’s criticism of his perceived abstractness and formality, and intentionally wrote for Stalin a “rousing, patriotic” ending, secretly saying that this was an ironic sarcastic portrayal of his tormenter. The problem is, the first three movements are dark and menacing, and the last movement is not often interpreted ironically enough, leading to the typical audience roars at the end of the piece…decidedly not what Shostakovich intended. What did Shostakovich actually write? He marks the opening of the last movement as “Allegro non troppo” (92 qpm), mocking the pomposity of his target, then accelerates over the first minute to the desired quick-march tempo at 132qpm.  The composer even adds intermediate metronome markings to manage this acceleration. You can hear this effect most closely in the performance by Shostakovich’s student Mistaslav Rostrapovich here. Yet few conductors now do what the composer asked for, beginning with Leonard Bernstein, who starts fast and barely accelerates, ignoring Shostakovich’s instructions completely. Dudamel chose a similarly adrenaline-filled opening. Likewise, the movement’s ending is marked at the same ironic, pompous tempo by the composer, which Rostropovich follows, while Bernstein stays fast. Such persistent fast tempi are bracing, but remove all sense of Stalin-mockery, so the last movement morphs into a virtuosic orchestral showpiece with an adrenaline-charged ending, at odds with the composer’s intent.  

Why this compositional irony? After the tragedy of the world wars, twentieth century composers had trouble writing honestly triumphal music, a problem lasting into our time. This is sad, since music can do triumph better than any other medium. I think the Bernstein/Dudamel interpretation of this piece is their attempt to return to the audience some of that lost uplift of earlier eras, but it comes at the risk of ignoring the intended bitterness of the composer. Is Shostakovich mocking us as well as Stalin when we roar approval at the end of the symphony? It seems that conductors have a very hard time entering Shostakovich’s bitter world and communicating it musically. Perhaps it takes a conductor like Rostropovich, who grew up in Stalin’s era, to accede to the mockery the composer created. I have no problem with the reinterpretation of music to serve different emotional contexts, but this symphony is striking at how assiduously conductors shy away from the what composer intended.

Dudamel, age 37, is now maturing as a conductor, using much more economical podium gestures, yet still producing exciting music. His innovative programming here should be applauded, and he and the orchestra received a rousing ovation from the often-jaded Lincoln Center audience. Oh, by the way, I finally got my wish to hear some late Wagner to bookend the wonderful first half music. The encore of the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, while not quite as string-plush and overwhelming as would be done by Berlin or Vienna, was still effective as a cap to this outstanding program by an excellent orchestra that is creating its own invigorating, creative space.