... not to notice the debut of Gustavo Dudamel's debut as conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This Saturday, both the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal published reviews of the debut and both were unalloyed raves. Yesterday, on Performance Today, as aired by the newly reconstituted WQXR, highlights of the debut were aired and I got to hear the the performance of Mahler's First Symphony. I don't have the ear that many people do, and heaven only knows what happens to the sound after it's been recorded, shipped around the world on satellite, broadcast over FM radio and then picked up by the internet, but... from what I could tell, it was a crystal clean performance. Entire sections almost sounded like soloists. --Regarding this, the commentators on Performance Today said the an orchestra usually tries their hardest for the debut of a new conductor. Here's a link to the Performance Today page where you can hear the highlights for yourself.
I'm very happy for the LA Philharmonic and wish them all the best. LA has an outstanding number of great musicians and it rarely receives the notices it deserves. The number of great musicians in LA has to do with the amount of work is available for them there. As KUSC is so fond of reminding listeners, LA is the entertainment capital of the world. And the lack of recognition has to do with the East Cost snobbery hard at work and probably some envy too because LA has had much better luck at building new concert halls than New York. (Alice Tully Hall has been rebuilt how many times? Four? And they still haven't gotten it quite right?)
I hope Dudamel and LA have many happy years together.
