Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, 31 May 2026
John Adams: Harmonium
Antonio Estévez: Cantata Criolla
Gustavo Dudamel’s last concert as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic features two large contemporary pieces for orchestra and choir celebrating his American and Venezuelan identities. He started his tenure premiering American composer John Adams’ City Noir and ends it with another work of Adams, Harmonium.
Dudamel’s spiritual take on the work downplays the orchestral contributions in favor of featuring the choir. While the Los Angeles Master Choral sounds magnificent with clear articulation and a great body of sound, I could have used more from the orchestra. Principal timpanist Joseph Pereira was replaced by a backup percussionist and one wonders if the he would have brought more incisive contributions, especially in the first movement. If Dudamel’s serene take underplays the first movement, “Negative Love”, whose text is from a John Donne poem, then it pays off in the next two movements from poems by Emily Dickinson. The Los Angeles Master Choral really carries this piece with their excellent voices with the LA Phil largely relegated to an accompanying role. The overall effect works with Dudamel giving an unselfish unifying vision of this celestial meditation on love, death, and life. The Los Angeles Master Choral shines, proving they are every bit as good as their world class orchestra peers. The piece requires a sense of cosmic mystery with a rhythmic waves of cinematic color. The power and intimacy of these voices provides this and a spiritual significance that by the end, you are left convinced that it is one of Adams’ finest achievements.
The concert continues with Venezuelan composer Antonio Estévez’s Cantata Criolla. The large scale choral work features plenty of drama, set to a poem by Alberto Arvelo Tarrealba about a singing contest between a common troubadour and the Devil. This performance has more idiomatic playing from the LA Phil with the continued excellence of the LA Master Choral as well as excellent soloists in Anthony León, tenor, and Eleomar Cuello, baritone. It is epic in scope and ambition, a spiritual contest full of peril, wit, and triumph. The work is already a standard in Latin American repertoire and looking to expand its influence around the world. This is my first time hearing the piece and it is already growing on me on repeated listenings. With an advocate as passionate as Dudamel, it has the right acolyte to champion this music. He first performed it during his inaugural season as music director and is a fitting final piece as a significant voice in an emerging national Venezuelan style.
The sheer size of these symphonic choral works meets the sense of occasion to celebrate Gustavo Dudamel’s unforgettable 17 years as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It is a testament to his musicianship and advocacy of newer works to help canonize two relatively modern pieces from the later half of the 20th century as his final program. Ultimately the night was bitter sweet. This program caps a season loaded with highlights and concludes a tenure as legendary as any in American orchestral history. Gustavo Dudamel leaves Los Angeles as the greatest conductor we have ever had and starts his time with the latest conductor of the New York Philharmonic as its most promising musical mind since Leonard Bernstein. His time here in LA is not over but transforming as he will remain close to the orchestra as Artistic and Cultural Laureate of the LA Phil. Combine that with Esa-Pekka Salonen returning as Creative Director, John Adams as Creative Chair, and Daniel Harding as the newly appointed Music Director, classical music lover in southern California should be in excellent hands for years to come.
