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Rockwell Matters Episode Transcript 12/10/2007

As anybody who loves classical music must know to death by now, Gustavo Dudamel has been in town in a big way. He conducted a couple of concerts with his Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, and then he made his New York Philharmonic debut. There have been endless articles about how exciting he is, how young he is, how flashy he is, how idealistic he is, and, of course, how successful he is, since he is now about (well, in a year or so) to succeed Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director of the L.A. Phil. There have also been articles about what sounds like an extraordinary youth program in Venezuela called “El Sistema.” Needless to say, I actually missed the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra concerts, although I’ve heard both of their CD’s, but what Tony Tommasini in the New York Times called “the debut that really mattered” was his debut with the New York Philharmonic.

There is a psychology afoot wherein something that is massively hyped awakens the feral instincts of people who want to take down that person, who want to set it straight and deflate the balloon and all of that sort of stuff, and I was not overwhelmed by the New York Philharmonic concerts. I thought he had not adjusted to Avery Fisher Hall, everything was too brash and loud, the orchestra looked bored, as they always do, and played well, but not especially, and the CD’s are better, because the Simon Bolivar Orchestra is his orchestra, he can work with them - the first was the Beethoven Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, and the second was the Mahler Fifth Symphony – the guy has modest ambitions.

And they’re good performances, but they’re not world beaters. That said, Dudamel is a phenomenon: he became the head of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra when he was 18, he’s now 26, he’ll still be in his twenties when he takes over the L.A. Phil - he’s pretty great. However, I was then reminded when he was there of two other conductors, Valery Gergiev, who just led three concerts with the Kirov folks at the Carnegie Hall, and according to him is doing 23 appearances in New York this season alone, counting the Vienna Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera – and Leonard Bernstein, whom everybody was evoking in the course of Dudamel’s appearances. Now, both of these guys started young as well; Gergiev was 25 when he became assistant conductor of the Mariinsky/Kirov and 35 when he took it over; Lenny was 25 when he became assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic – course, he got a huge boost by jumping in for Bruno Walter and making a flashy debut – and also, unlike Gergiev and Dudamel, Bernstein was a composer of enormous talent.

But, they’re all young, flashy conductors – and I stress the word “flashy” because there is a prejudice in some quarters against excitement in conducting. People like sober people who can lay out the structure, or so they believe, of a symphony, people like Bernard Haitink or Colin Davis, both of whom have given me great pleasure in concerts and recordings – but I like intensity in music, whether it’s obtained through sheer vigor like with Toscanini, or with romantic excess like Furtwangler, or with, sort of, sheer brilliance like Dudamel, Gergiev and Bernstein can all produce. There was also a comparative thing here, because the Prokofiev Fifth figured large in all three men.

With Dudamel, because he ended his New York Philharmonic program with it; with Gergiev because he is the Russian conductor of the day and has recently recorded all the Prokofiev symphonies with the London Symphony; and Bernstein, who recorded the Prokofiev Fifth twice, first with the New York Philharmonic and then with the Israel Philharmonic. Now, Dudamel, also, it should be pointed out, made an overt reference to his admiration for Lenny Bernstein by using his baton, which we now read, he broke, in the course of the concert. But, what the heck, it can be repaired! And people have sort of made fun of him for this fascination with Lenny. It should be pointed out the Lenny fetishized Serge Koussevitzky as well. More to the point, however, are the performances.

As I have suggested, Dudamel’s was exciting but kind of surface. Gergiev’s, with the London Symphony, is extremely powerful. But Lenny’s, especially the New York Philharmonic one, which is the earlier one, more like when Dudamel was the same age and with the same orchestra, is just magisterial. It’s a different level of music-making. This is not to say that Dudamel is a fraud – he’s an enormously talented guy, and he will surely grow into his extant fame. But he isn’t quite there yet. I, for one, am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and hope he’ll become as great as his hype.

This is John Rockwell for Rockwell Matters.

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