Dudamel doesn't own the LA Phil yet

Right off: the concert was marvelous. It's worth remembering that. But, Dudamel has his work cut out for him. It may not take him as long as it took Rattle to transform the CBSO and I'm sure there are many parallels, although Rattle did it less publicly and with less humility.

Tonight I went to see the LA Philharmonic at NJPAC with their new musical director, Gustavo Dudamel. The program was both ambitious and familiar: Bernstein's Symphony No 2 (Age of Anxiety - basically a piano concerto) and Mahler's Symphony No 1, which was played at their first concert in their new partnership. Typically, when a large crowd gathers there is incessant coughing and sneezing but at least only two cell phones rang that I could hear. The concert was not sold out but NJPAC ran out of programs anyway, and the young mingled amongst the pretentious money clearly on display. I liked the sold-on-the-hype teenagers - they cheered, whistled and yelled at the appropriate moments. Good stuff.

The last movement of the Mahler was by far the best part of the concert, even though the players were obviously tired: most of the individual showmanship prevalent in the Bernstein and beginning of the Mahler was all but dissipated, except the principal viola player who seemed to genuinely play with her whole being. Maybe its because the orchestra is on tour and almost had a day off today. Photos of the touristy stuff atop the Empire State Building and in Times Square were posted on Twitter and their blog throughout the day, but the Leipzig Gewundhaus and London Symphony Orchestra did much the same thing and it didn't show.

Basically, I can see the attraction of this new marketing superstar conductor. His story (a poor hispanic done good) is appealing to everyone in the USA and when mixed with his obvious musical talent then yes, he has a long career ahead of him. But his orchestra certainly isn't his yet and still bears the fingerprints of the wooden Salonen (I remember him from his Philharmonia guest conductor days in London, where he is returning following the LA Phil's unspoken but deserved shove out the door to make room for the latest marketing phenomenon. Don't get me wrong: Dudamel's doing some great work for orchestral music in all three of his musical directorship positions). In about 7 years the @LAPhil is going to be a fantastic group - when it's mostly filled with players of Dudamel's choosing.

There were many places tonight where the ensemble didn't click and play together. A surprisingly large number of sloppy entries and cut offs permeated a yawningly dramatic show. As we left the auditorium a few comments were made that "this was the best this orchestra has ever sounded." Well, they would know. Unfortunately for me, the orchestra was flat. As in boring. The last movement of the Mahler was definitely the only exception and actually made folk fidget with energy and sit on the edge of their seats - literally. I've never seen that at an orchestral concert before.

The Mahler second movement in particular demonstrated Dudamel's over-dramatization to the extent that the 'line' of the music was lost and quite disjointed. The third movement was fully enhanced by an excellent pre-concert lecture by George Marriner Maull, Artistic Director of The Discovery Orchestra, and it was refreshing to hear another orchestra play quietly again - not done in this venue since the London Symphony visited NJPAC a few months back. I liked Dudamel's talking to the orchestra onstage during bows. I first noticed it on the widely-circulated SBYO Proms video (playing the Bernstein that made them all famous) and liked it then, too. In fact, he rarely bowed and simply let the orchestra take the credit. That's nice. And appropriate.

The first half of the program was held together almost entirely by the fantastic pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet (and his busy page-turner). He was very good and deserved the long line of supporters buying CDs and getting autographs during the intermission. Its a shame that Dudamel wasn't allowed to meet his fans after the concert. The usual named folk were allowed backstage and two large groups (one was forty 8yr old school girls in uniform - this was at 10:15pm) were readmitted to the theater next door to meet him.

Attending tonight's concert was like experiencing the NY Phil with the social media friendly Lorin Maazel - it made me hungry to conduct Tchaik 4 or The Planets with a 100-piece professional orchestra. On the other hand, experiencing the London Symphony or the Leipzig Gewundhaus at the same venue was purely humbling and reminded me why I'm not an international superstar conductor. I'm actually going to look out for some 'official' reviews tomorrow to see how much of an outlier I really am. Or not.