Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Gustavo Dudamel each lead a major program. Salonen's 'Gemini' and Gabriela Ortiz's 'Yanga' get premieres.
Most orchestra-going Angelenos can be expected to know Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Gustavo Dudamel
There was no kidding possible, however, at Walt Disney Concert Hall this past weekend when each conductor spent an evening withorchestra as part of the L.A. Phil’s 100th birthday party. For the gala on the big night Thursday, Mehta, Salonen and Dudamel each led a work or two, followed by the premiere of “From Space I Saw Earth” for three conductors, which Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason wrote for the occasion.
It turns out all those attention-getting old Mehta gestures were just that. The integrity of the music-making came from elsewhere, and never was that more apparent in the sheer intensity of sound — deep, rich, all-suffusing — he could get from the L.A. Phil, with his two vocal soloists, Golda Schultz and Mihoko Fujimura, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale equally meeting Mehta on his own exulted level. He’ll be back conducting the “Resurrection” with the L.A. Phil in January.
Now there is “Castor,” which is an adrenaline rush, spectacularly orchestrated and rhythmically exhilarating. It is a conductor’s piece, meant to dazzle. During rehearsals of “Castor,” Salonen replaced bass drums with Japanese taiko drums, and on Saturday he made the same change with “Pollux.” There is also a very brief new transition between the two, creating a just-under-24-minute whole, a satisfying two-parter of anticipation and release full of never-predictable twists and turns.
Gustavo Dudamel conducts the L.A. Phil musicians at Walt Disney Concert Hall to celebrate the orchestra’s 100th birthday.
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