For his second program in his season as the Philharmonic’s Music and Artistic Director Designate, Gustavo Dudamel showcased two Symphonies separated by nearly two centuries. Beethoven’s Fifth was masterfully performed, but it was John Corigliano’s intensely personal First that made the greater impact. Inspired by the AIDS Quilt, a 54-ton mosaic of nearly 50,000 separate patchwork panels, each woven by friends and relatives of an AIDS victim, Corigliano wrote the work in 1988 to commemorate friends he had lost in the then-ongoing epidemic. With a multi-hued score, savagely swaying between passages of rage and nostalgia, Corigliano’s spellbinding depiction of trauma and suffering still seems remarkably relevant, nearly four decades after its composition in this inspired, emotionally powerful rendition.
Opening with an attention-grabbing, harsh metallic clang and a long, jarring note on violins and violas that resolved into another equally uncomfortable tone, the first movement, ‘Apologue: Of Rage and Remembrance’, set the mood. As Dudamel elicited all the desperation and longing in Corigliano’s score, the Philharmonic never sounded stronger, more urgent or precise. The most magical moment in the largely somber opening lament was the ghostlike sound of an off-stage pianist playing Leopold Godowsky’s transcription of Isaac Albéniz’s Tango(a favorite of a concert-pianist friend) through a veil of shimmering strings. In the second movement (a depiction of another musician friend’s descent into schizophrenia), the lucid moments in its chilling, disorienting dance theme were continually interrupted and ultimately erased by increasingly blaring brass.
In the third and final movements – ‘Chaconne: Giulio’s Song’ and ‘Epilogue’ – played without pause – Carter Brey’s touching solo, eventually joined by a second cello, was followed by a selection of brief musical themes, each set for a different instrument to memorialize various friends. Throughout, the orchestra played with deep feeling and conviction, reinforcing Corigliano’s Symphony as one of the most compelling works of the late-twentieth-century. Amid the thunderous applause, Dudamel walked offstage, then returned with the 87-year-old composer, hugging him, and the two were repeatedly called back.
Beethoven’s Fifth opened the concert. With such familiar music, it can be difficult for a conductor to find a distinctive approach, but with his expressive gestures, crystal-clear cues, and admirable control of dynamics, Dudamel made the Philharmonic players especially incisive, even a little violent, in the outer movements, and drew delicate, almost chamber-like sounds, in the second and third. He was a gracious and joyful presence throughout this vibrant, glowing account, with the Finale, played a bit broader than usual, most impressive.