JANUARY
Last January Susanna Mälkki led the LAPhil in the U.S. premiere of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s 1966 Concerto for cello and orchestra (and three dancers), en forme de pas de trois.
There was a lot going on even before the curtain went up. Robert deMaine, the scheduled cello soloist, dropped out, and was replaced by a team of three: the Phil’s own Ben Hong, plus guests Eric Byers, and Jacaranda veteran Timothy Loo. They needed three, according to the program insert, “due to the highly complex nature of the work.” Each took a movement: Hong did the Allegro, Byers the Adagio, and Loo the Blues and Coda.
The staging and the choreography on offer made BAZ’s specification of a dance element in the orchestra seem a bad idea. What was he thinking? Possibly he meant it as a comic/critical gesture, crashing two different genres of performance together in the same space. A collage of two activities typically separated? A satire of lack of space for creative work? Or it might have been an attempt to seduce the audience, in the way Cunningham’s dancing seduced audiences to listen to Cage’s music.
Whatever, what’s memorable is the concluding Blues and Coda with cello in dialogue with the bass, which sounds like a guitar. Then the piano and cimbalom jump in. Bebop ferocity and New York School whispers. Still, but not stopped.
It was nice to preface the concerto with Webern, and follow it with the with Richard Strauss; BAZ has a connections with both.
(There’s a good performance online by Heinrich Schiff, and the SWF Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden.)
FEBRUARY
Then in February, the LA Phil premiered Salonen’s Cello Concerto, with Yo-Yo Ma. Salonen’s music is always engaging, but this was shattering. The score called for the cello to produce exquisitely pure tones, astonishing static feedback, romps, elegies, and everything else, including whale calls. Ma made it seem natural, nothing to it. I need to hear it again. But who besides Ma can play it?
MARCH
In March, Ma was back with Emmanuel Ax and Leonidas Kavakos, playing the three Brahms trios. WDCH was packed, almost sold out, despite being Oscar Night.
The Trios were challenging but rewarding. The program, in ascending order of impressiveness, peaked with the Adagio of the revised #1 at Morton Feldman levels of slowness.
The audience went berserk. So they did an encore of another slow movement, the Andante from Schubert’s B flat Piano Trio. And so just after having spent all evening convincing us that Brahms was the most genial and impressive magician, this fragment cast Brahms in the shade. Worth it.
APRIL
This month, LA Phil did another Salonen premiere, “Pollux,” for a big orchestra. Twelve minutes of intricate colors and textures, a succession of moods, from relaxed to agitated. It seems it’s a work in progress, with a contrasting “Castor” forthcoming. It seemed a work in progress, especially when Dudamel followed it with Varèse’s Amériques. I wondered if the audience would rebel, but instead it roared.
Followed by another switchbacks – Shostakovich’s Symphony #5. Followed yet another – an encore of the Tristan & Isolde Prelude. Dudamel didn’t let the nine French horns go to waste.