BOWL WAGNER

In music-making, more may be merrier, but more is often mellower as well. That
theory was nicely put to the test at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday night, when
the presence of two orchestras — 200 musicians — sounded at least as good,
perhaps even better, than either of the orchestras by itself.This was, in other words, the annual bout of duelling orchestras, when the
resident Los Angeles Philharmonic moved over to share its stage with the
youngsters of the Philharmonic Institute Orchestra. The result, it was easy to
sense, was one of those ideal occasions when the young players’ energy
provided a challenge to the Philharmonic’s old-timers, while the older group
could show the youngsters a thing or two about stability. All that, of course,
is only an outsider’s intuition, but it might go a long way to explain why the
combined forces sounded as good as they did that night.John Nelson was the evening’s conductor, formerly of the Indianapolis Symphony
and more recently an active Europe-based freelancer; his contribution included
the Barber Adagio for Strings and a set of selections from Wagner’s
“Gotterdammerung,” with the two orchestras, and the Grieg Piano Concerto
with the Philharmonic alone, and with the young Norwegian pianist Leif Ove
Andsnes, in his local debut, as soloist. On its own, the Institute Orchestra
was led by conductor-trainee Arthur Post in a brief Meditation from Leonard
Bernstein’s “Mass.” A rich, full evening it was. Where, in fact, to start? The popular Barber Adagio, composed originally for
four strings, was the evening’s only real failure in its drastic expansion;
the simple, quiet patterns simply do not work under the burden of all that
tone. Bernstein’s brief reworking of his “Mass” excerpt, arranged as a piece
for cello and orchestra (and beautifully played by Lynn Harrell) is an
elegant, impassioned tidbit from an otherwise grossly uneven work.
But these were as divine discourses compared to the mindless vulgarity of
Grieg’s strained and strenuous pomposities. Norwegian musicians must bear
their Grieg as an albatross, as Finnish conductors must bear Sibelius, but
Leif Ove Andsnes, at 21, is worthy of stronger challenges. The work demands
old-fashioned, flamboyant, rhetorical virtuosity; the Andsnes performance,
made up of interesting single moments but lacking in any real character, came
off as so much clatter.But then came the Wagner to storm the heavens — and even, for once, to drive
the air traffic from the skies. Nelson had put together a sweep across this
final chapter of the mighty “Ring of the Nibelung”: “Dawn and Siegfried’s
Rhine Journey” merging through a well-constructed bridge into the “Funeral
March” which then oozed, somewhat less successfully, into the entire last
scene of “Brunnhilde’s Immolation.” Without the voice, the final scene did have its aimless moments; some of it
might have been cut back with no real loss. The rest was glorious: the
marvelously paced, solemn March with its crashes like the harbingers of Doom,
the throat-grabbing lamentations as the final harmonies build their unbearable
tension. It’s all very well that we honor Mozart at the Bowl in this
anniversary year, but it’s always the right year to celebrate Wagner, at least
when it’s done this well.

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