Author Archives: Alan Rich

The signing of 26-year-old Gustavo Dudamel to take over the Los Angeles Philharmonic podium – snatched from the hot grasp of half a dozen other conductor-hungry American orchestras – has been a coup both musical and political, in many circles … Continue reading →

Daniel Rothmuller has been a member of the L.A. Philharmonic’s cello section since the 1970-’71 season, and associate principal cellist since 1975. That means he has played under Zubin Mehta, Carlo Maria Giulini, André Previn and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and is … Continue reading →

Minimal MerrimentOf all the unreasonable choices for operatic fare to sweep cheery breezes across this season’s repertory, a revival of 2001’s The Merry Widow, in the San Francisco production by Lotfi Mansouri – originally conceived by him in 1981 as … Continue reading →

The Tristan Reject Not content with merely presenting the inscrutable masterpiece, the opera that changed the course of artistic thought forever, the Philharmonic offered further ennoblement under the rubric of “The Tristan Project.” First injected onto the Disney stage in … Continue reading →

When People Die . . . Back in 1992, the host of KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic – what’s-‘is-name? – let himself be hypnotized by the Third Symphony of the Polish composer Henryk Górecki, and passed it on to the rest … Continue reading →

Moving Along One day in 2005, Ernest Fleischmann, former honcho of the Philharmonic and now of the musical world at large, invited me to lunch, a frequent and pleasant occurrence. This time there was good food, plus a command. On … Continue reading →

Rousing the Dead Christopher Rouse burst upon the scene in the 1980s, with a barrage of orchestral works bearing titles such as Bump, Phantasmata and Infernal Machine and, in sheer decibel power, living up to their names. Later on, he … Continue reading →

Julius Who?If the name of Julius Reubke means nothing to you, that’s understandable; mine, however, is the even greater guilt. I’d seen the name for years, on posters and programs, record catalogs and small entries in encyclopedias, always connected with … Continue reading →

Opus 110 As Alfred Brendel’s recital at Disney Hall last week amplified, in no work does the voice of Beethoven – defiant, despairing, triumphant, vulnerable – resound more compellingly than in the next-to-last of his 32 piano sonatas. I’ve never … Continue reading →

The Sound Ringing Forth Years of listening to his symphonies through Hollywood Bowl amplification can leave you with a distorted sound image of Tchaikovsky’s remarkable orchestral language – what old Bernheimer used to refer to as the “slush pump.” The … Continue reading →