went to the philharmonic's concert last night, mainly to witness this gustavo dudamel phenomenon. the program was as follows:

Chávez:Symphony No. 2, Sinfonía India
Dvorák:Violin Concerto with Gil Shaham
Prokofiev:Symphony No. 5

first of all, i was sitting at the score desk @ avery fisher hall, which i didn't even realize it existed until last night. because the concert was sold out, i had gotten these 2 free score desk seats from my friends in the orchestra. am i glad that i went? that's the question to answer at the end of this blog.

anyway, sitting that high up, you get the entire view of the orchestra, as well as the audience. it was pretty packed and that means about 3000 people in the concert hall, including the musicians & backstage people. that's quite a lot. i was dreading the sound quality a bit as avery fisher ain't no carnegie, but surprisingly, it was okay! perhaps i should sit this far up often (NOT!).

chávez was a fun piece for dudamel to start off with. prolly a comfort piece for him to get his blood pumpin'. orchestra sounded carefree and relaxed. then dvorák with shaham started. the orchestra sounded like CRAP. i mean, i understand that usually when playing concerti, the orchestras aren't as well prepared, because they're only the "accompanying" partner and not the soloist. however, seeing in the program that they've played this piece with sarah chang about 3 years ago, shouldn't they sound more with it? the woodwinds & the brass sounded horrible, cracking and so on. shaham was smooth, too smooth. i don't like that kind of playing. it's too 'debonair' and it doesn't have that gypsy feeling, especially for this folksy piece. he should just stick with bruch, mendelssohn, maybe vivaldi. bright sounds.

i was looking forward to prokofiev, because i know it pretty well, having played it in the orchestra at school (tiny piano part, but it was worth all the boring rehearsal times, as pianists hardly get any experience IN the orchestra), plus it'd show off dudamel as the conductor - finally, something to look forward to.

i'll say this: he has a tremendous talent and opportunities ahead of him. i think big challenges too. he is musical, technically sound, but a big horse like prokofiev 5th, it's hard to keep it together, as fine as ny phil may be (strings sounded good, but really people, flutes screwing up? horns ALWAYS cracking? ugh...why do you even get paid $200K a year to play badly??), it takes a great "maestro" to keep it moving and creating something beautiful. i thought dudamel brought out some beautiful and skewed lines out of it (after all, this is prokofiev), but the players were messing up at some key moments (ugh, percussion group, get it together!).

bottom line: i'm glad i went to "witness" it but i didn't leave the concert with stars in my eyes (like i have before with Muti & Argerich). dudamel is worth the attention but people should settle down and let him grow up a bit. after all, he's only 26.