Youth Leading Youth
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

On Sunday afternoon, thousands of people — including famous musicians — crammed into Carnegie Hall to see the future: Gustavo Dudamel. He is a 26-year-old conductor from Venezuela, and the most ballyhooed classical artist this side of Anna Netrebko. In 2009, he will become music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. And, two days ago, New Yorkers experienced him with the orchestra he has led since his teens: the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.
Mr. Dudamel is a skinny guy with big hair and a big smile. He “oozes charisma,” as they say — and they’re right. On the podium, he is kinetic, expressing every musical thought through his body — various parts. And he has an obvious connection with his young players. He has the ability to communicate to an orchestra, and that, of course, is indispensable.
He began his program with the “Roman Carnival” Overture of Berlioz. And he demonstrated his keen sense of rhythm, along with his keen sense of phrasing. These, too, are indispensable. And we remember that, though experience is important, it isn’t everything: Talent counts for a lot. When it comes to sound, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra is not to be confused with the Berlin Philharmonic (which plays in Carnegie Hall tonight). Nor should it be. Parts of the Berlioz were grossly bangy, which Mr. Dudamel should have prevented. But this is a mightily impressive organization.
After the overture, Emanuel Ax, the veteran and ubiquitous American pianist, came out to play Chopin’s Concerto No. 2 in F minor. And Mr. Ax did some beautiful, smooth, limpid playing. He has many gifts.
But the first movement was harmfully slow, and languid, and meandering. It badly needed more body. If you turn Chopin into soup, he doesn’t work. And the last movement ought to be gay and irresistible — it needs abundant style. In these hands, it was a little sleepy: pretty and reserved.
Funny thing is, Artur Rubinstein, in his long career, was supposed to have banished this type of Chopin playing. He was supposed to have introduced discipline, athleticism, and even a dose of Classicism, forever. He removed the perfume from Chopin, took him out of the parlor. But sometimes the perfume and the parlor want to return.
Mr. Ax, for all his gifts, played the F-minor concerto in a way that makes people turn against Chopin, and against Romanticism in general. But he was very good in his encore. (Why are concerto soloists playing so many encores these days? Is it some mark of shame not to?) He played Chopin’s haunting, beloved Waltz in A minor — and did so wisely and beautifully.
After intermission, it was Dudamel time again. The conductor and his orchestra launched into the Fifth Symphony (Beethoven, of course — although they have recorded Mahler’s, too). In the opening movement, Mr. Dudamel was incisive and emphatic, enjoying his material. He also indulged in some semi-eccentricities: elongations of notes; a slowing down of the overall tempo.
The second movement was quite interesting. Nowadays, the fashion is to speed through it. But Mr. Dudamel took it at a deliberate tempo — almost too deliberate. The orchestra was sloppy as heck, but we are reminded that they’re a youth orchestra. And they responded to their conductor’s spacious leadings.
The third movement was too slow and sloppy — amateurish — to be really effective. And the finale was rather churned through, bulled through — which is okay. When Mr. Dudamel put down his baton, the audience screamed and cheered at length. I’m not sure I have ever heard a louder or longer ovation in Carnegie Hall. Certainly Eugen Jochum, say — wherever he appeared — never received anything like it. But who said life was fair, in the music biz or elsewhere?
While the audience was cheering, the orchestra — in a trick they have turned before — shed their concert jackets in favor of national jackets: sort of windbreakers, featuring the Venezuelan flag, with the name of the country on the back. The audience adored this — screaming some more. It’s funny about Americans: We are taught to fear and loathe nationalism, in ourselves, and some others. But we’re apt to thrill to some people’s nationalisms.
Thus outfitted, the orchestra slinked and romped through a set of Latin American music — which included the “Mambo” bit from Bernstein’s “West Side Story.” At the end of this set, the players partied and paraded about, twirling their instruments, livin’ la vida loca.
So, in the person of Gustavo Dudamel, we have seen the future. Does it work? It’s hard to judge him with a youth orchestra — even an excellent one — but, yes: It does work. Hype is annoying, but the hype around Mr. Dudamel is not without foundation.