Last night at the New York Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel was greeted with huge applause. In the past, I have seen him greeted with more applause than he would receive upon exiting. I am reminded of the 1984 Democratic presidential primaries. (Aren’t you?)
Senator John Glenn would receive great applause when he entered a room. He was greeted as a space hero, an American legend, really. Then he would speak—rather woodenly. And the applause afterward would be weaker.
Last night, it is good to report, Maestro Dudamel received great applause on both ends.
He was guest-conducting the Philharmonic. Is “guest-conducting” the word? He is the music-director-in-waiting. He will assume the post in the 2026–27 season.
The program last night was Franco-American, if you will. Many of us grew up with a line of food products called “Franco-American.” (“Uh-oh! SpaghettiOs.”) The program began with Amériques, the piece by Edgard Varèse, a Frenchman who became an American.
The conductor has two jobs here. First, he must keep the car on the road. He must keep the orchestra together, managing the composer’s complicated mathematics. Second, he must (or should) make music. Dudamel did both.
Amériques began with some lovely playing by Alison Fierst on the alto flute. Later in the piece, we got some elegant turbulence, from one and all. The brass played mellifluously. (How often does one write such a thing? Rarely.) Dudamel cued expertly. The Philharmonic played like a virtuosic orchestra.
If I have a complaint, it is this: there was too little dynamic variation; loudness was too little relieved. But Varèse wrote a loud piece, it is true.
With my ears hurting (frankly), the orchestra turned to Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite. This was a balm, a caress rather than an assault. The orchestra played with French delicacy. Our Philharmonic sounded like a French, or “French,” orchestra.
We have had such orchestras in America before. In the 1950s, there was one in Boston, conducted by Charles Munch, and another in Detroit, conducted by Paul Paray.
French music often means flutes, and the Philharmonic’s flutes had a very good night. I have already mentioned Ms. Fierst. The section’s principal, Robert Langevin, is one of the orchestra’s prime assets.
In Mother Goose, the concertmaster, Frank Huang, played some good ghostly high notes. The horn section offered some good unison playing. Anthony McGill was smooth on his clarinet.
Hearing the last movement, “The Enchanted Garden,” I thought of encores. We don’t get encores from the New York Phil. (Lorin Maazel, when he was the music director, conducted a few.) “The Enchanted Garden” is the go-to encore of Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Conductors sometimes have go-to encores. The late Yuri Temirkanov had three: one by Prokofiev, the “Amoroso” from Cinderella, and two by Elgar: the “Nimrod” Variation and Salut d’amour.
After intermission last night, we had Ravel and more Ravel. This is a “Ravel year,” in that the composer was born a hundred and fifty years ago.
The first piece on the second half of the program was a new one. A new one, by Maurice Ravel? It was a student piece, long buried. It is more a fragment than a piece, really: Sémiramis: Prélude et danse. It is brooding, Romantic, and “Oriental.”
Question: Would it have an airing if it were not by a great composer? Probably not, but it is by a great composer.
We then had the Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2. Ever heard the Suite No. 1? It is the neglected sibling. In any event, Maestro Dudamel knows his way around this music. The right breathing was there—the swellings, the subsidings. The Philharmonic achieved a classically French sheen.
The program ended with Gershwin, his American in Paris. Dudamel began it fast and intense. I suppose I like it suave, debonair, and insouciant. (Interesting that all three of those words are French, isn’t it?) But fast and intense worked pretty well.
Dudamel has an affinity for jazzy music. Some years ago, he conducted West Side Story at the Salzburg Festival. “America” was hot and joyful.
In the Gershwin, Christopher Martin sang like a pro. He is the Philharmonic’s principal trumpet. At the other end of the brass spectrum, Alan Baer, the tuba, shone too.
The Philharmonic has had some rough outings this season. Last night, the orchestra was as it should be: first-class.
“Tbh,” as they say on social media—“to be honest”—I have cast a skeptical eye on the Cult of the Dude. I have heard Mr. Dudamel conduct some real snoozeroos. But last night, he, like the orchestra, was first-class. And the two things are related, of course. All the top orchestras have worthy personnel. What makes the difference is the guy, or gal, with the stick.
The future could be all right.
