The Los Angeles Philharmonic kicked off its new season with a gala that enthralled the audience from start to finish. The air was electric as the star-studded crowd took their seats and when Lang Lang appeared, the energy shifted from anticipation to awe. His performance of Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto was monumental, leaving the rest of the concert in its shadow. From the first note, it was clear that the night would belong to him.
Even the acoustics of the Walt Disney Concert Hall played a role. As Lang Lang rolled out the concerto’s dark and moody introductory chords, each individual piano string seemed to vibrate through the space. The opening had a haunting, sepulchral quality, with Lang setting a funereal pace. As the piano established this somber tone, the strings sounded lush and full. The violas and cellos, tawny and resonant, engaged in intimate dialogues, enriched by delicate flourishes from the French horn and flute. As the music enveloped the hall, the concerto evolved into a symphony where the piano and orchestra were seamlessly interwoven.
In the second movement, Lang Lang found the inert gravitas of a Brahms concerto, imposing a sense of profound introspection on the piece. His performance was brooding and deliberate, allowing the music’s emotional depth to fully emerge. As he steeled himself for the final movement, he leaned back, stretched and cracked his knuckles before an exhilarating, headlong rush through the finale, marked by a breathtakingly precise fugue and conductor Gustavo Dudamel's brilliant navigation.
After a series of enthusiastic curtain calls, Dudamel pushed him back on stage for an encore, the Romance sans paroles from Charlotte Sohy's Quatre pièces romantiques, Op.30, which he performed with crystalline purity, infusing it with a playful spirit of love and affection.
Without intermission Dudamel conducted Ginastera's gaucho ballet Estancia without a score – no wonder since it's become a sort of signature piece for the Philharmonic; last year they joined Grupo Corpo at the Hollywood Bowl for a full performance and their recording was released. Without dancers, the evocative tale was still a highly-entertaining lesson on how to use all the instruments of the orchestra, including at least six percussionists, and especially when enhanced by Gustavo Castillo's ardent short solos and readings from the poem that inspired the ballet; most beautifully when embraced by a solo violin and viola. The Philharmonic for their part responded with the Technicolor virtuosity that is their trademark.
The evening ended on a lighthearted note with John Philip Sousa's Liberty Bell March in which Dudamel, conducting the audience as they clapped along, injected playful energy into the gala. It lacked, however, the clunky absurdist elegance famously associated with it use as the title music for Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Perhaps binge watching is in order...
