Gustavo Takes the Stage

Twenty-eight year-old Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel made his debut as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall Thursday night. The premiere was met with all the fanfare, glamour and expectation befitting a king.

NPR was on hand to broadcast the event. The WSJ, NYT, and LA Times offer effusive praise. Some samples:

The result was a blaring crowd-pleaser to be sure, but in Mr. Dudamel's hands this well-known symphony, which he led without a score, became something more: a fresh and supple work. Textures were disarmingly transparent in the first movement. And if the conductor's pacing was measured (per the tempo markings), tension never flagged.

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The payoff predictably came in the finale, which the conductor layered precisely, gradually increasing tension until what began intensely turned heaven storming. Yes, pushing the taunting brasses this way undercut their warmth, but the consequent thrill handily compensated

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Mr. Dudamel, gyrating on the podium and in control at every moment, drew a cranked-up yet subtly colored performance of this challenging score from his eager players. He seemed so confident dispatching this metrically fractured work that I was drawn into the music, confident that a pro was on the podium.

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Oct. 8, 2009, is not the date of a revolution in music. The day marks not even the dawn of a new era. What the Gustavo Dudamel gala Thursday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall did mean for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, however, was an embrace of a new generation and cultural point of view, which is no small thing.

What's even more astounding than the level of intensity, the youth and the charisma Dudamel brings to this post is the reaction he elicits from the Los Angeles public. Many who were there that night revealed that they've never before been to a classical music concert; his new admirers readily admitted that they came only to see him.

By all accounts, it was a night to remember.