The maxim of orchestral administration is that if you rent a brand new music director, you need to instantly begin searching for the subsequent one.
Gustavo Dudamel arrives this fall as appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic, then as its music and inventive director within the 2026-27 season. Nobody desires to switch him rapidly, however even with a brand new famous person, it is the accountability of each orchestra to maintain searching for rising expertise—to see who has chemistry with the gamers, who deserves to be invited again, and who may even be an intriguing candidate for , hopefully, a great opening sooner or later.
The brand new yr introduced a few of that new blood to the rostrum at David Geffen Corridor with back-to-back debuts by two maestros of their 40s, from the identical era as Dudamel. I listened to them on back-to-back nights: Kevin John Edusei on Tuesday and Daniele Rustioni on Wednesday.
Each concert events have been nice. The Philharmonic emerged from its vacation break sounding recent and energetic, but open to a pair of conductors clearly serious about extracting subtleties.
Edusei’s debut was maybe the extra spectacular achievement, because the German musician, who’s finishing a tenure as principal visitor conductor of the Fort Price Symphony Orchestra in Texas, offered a program of items that may be obscure. Strauss’s “Additionally Sprach Zarathustra,” like all of this composer’s tone poems, can appear leaden and overlong. Berlioz’s six-song set “Les Nuits d’Été” could appear too delicate to register in a big live performance corridor.
Zarathustra is, after all, well-known for its swelling, exploding opening, the brassy fanfare that Stanley Kubrick used so memorably in 2001: A Area Odyssey. However a lot of the half-hour work is just not on this triumphant spirit; it is an emotional murmur, a chamber-style intimacy, an eerie murmur of music.
The perfect conductors of Strauss’s tone poems revel within the quieter issues, somewhat than seeming to easily be ready impatiently for the subsequent flashy climax. If you happen to love this materials like Edusei did, these climaxes construct extra naturally and powerfully. On Tuesday, the ever-changing, all-too-easily meandering piece got here out tighter than ordinary; it wasn’t compelled, nevertheless it felt targeted. Strauss’ depraved grotesques have been superbly performed, with a heat coziness subsequent to the thicket of intertwining strains within the wind.
In “Les Nuits d’Été,” Berlioz’s brooding scenes of affection poems, mezzo-soprano Isabelle Leonard was an outstanding soloist. She sounded silky but wealthy, her tone on “Sur les Lagunes” darkish and melancholy, with the seductive phantasm of coming from a distance. She captured the longing silence of “Absence” but in addition the lightheartedness of the primary and final tracks. The orchestra was fashionable and particular: hazy however exact in “Au Cimitière”, with a way of nocturnal intimacy all through.
Edusei’s live performance opened with Samy Moussa’s Elysium (2021), a glacially evolving, bombastically jarring 12-minute piece that the Philharmonic performed with cinematic aura. There was a gap of the identical size in Rustioni’s program, which runs via Saturday, however that is extra of a rarity from the previous than one thing trendy.
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s stressed overture The Service provider of Venice (1933) had not been carried out by the orchestra since 1941, so it was fascinating to listen to this confidently woven mix of extremely dramatic and exquisitely dreamy music.
Rustioni was an Italian conductor greatest recognized for opera; he was recently named principal visitor conductor of the Metropolitan Opera. However he has been doing an increasing number of live performance work, particularly in the US, and capped his admirable debut with a stirring efficiency of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, one of many pillars of the orchestral repertoire.
As within the Castelnuovo-Tedesco Overture, Rustioni directs Tchaikovsky’s transitions in a dramatic method with out being exaggerated. There have been passages within the first motion that originally struck me as too sluggish, however Rustioni confidently – certainly, excitingly – picked up the tempo little by little, negotiating the rating with out abruptness or awkwardness and constructing to a scorching blow on the finish of the motion.
The second motion was intentionally sped up however stuffed with restrained power; the lyricism felt expansive with out shedding ahead momentum. The celebration of the third and fourth actions appeared pretty earned, with the orchestra seeming to get pleasure from their full dynamic vary.
Earlier than intermission, in Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, Joshua Bell tackled the solo half together with his ordinary preternaturally easy tone and his ordinary unusual lack of shock regardless of the superficial liveliness. He blended notably nicely with the wind within the first motion. Within the second, the strings performed with heated unanimity, and the third was full of life however elegant, not too rustic or heavy. Even with a sure vacancy at its heart, the live performance was polished and pleasurable.
Whereas Dudamel is on his manner, it is reassuring that the Philharmonic is not utilizing his rent to relaxation on its laurels. We are able to solely hope that the relationships he’s beginning now with artists like Edusei and Rustioni will proceed and deepen.
