So let's talk about the least underrated figure in music, and why he is earning his fame by using it to give to so many in the world who are very much underrated....
Mahler 3 is my favorite piece of orchestral music in the world, and the best live performance I've ever heard of it was after sneaking up to the front row of David Geffen Hall to hear a performance by, of all people, Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic. I've heard it done live by Temirkanov, Eschenbach, Ivan Fischer, Alsop, and Nezet-Seguin - only Temirkanov came even close to this. No matter how many concerts Dudamel's thrown, after that matinee, I liked Dudamel forever. Then, during the curtain call, a bunch of celebrity hound tourists came to the front of the stage and insisted he pose in a picture in the middle of a curtain call, and I saw Dudamel say 'fuck you' under his breath before flashing a thousand watt smile. After that, Dudamel earned my loyalty forever.
I've never heard a Dudamel performance that wasn't either superb or terrible - he's never merely OK. But even if he's scandalously overrated these days, even if he's not particularly good, here's why Dudamel is eventually going to be as great as advertised, while Andris may not be and Yannick definitely won't be. The other two hotshots are in it for themselves, Dudamel is in it for people under him, and he gives back. He gave back to Venezuela as best he could while trying to minimize his collaboration with a regime who could throw all the family members he left behind in prison. He gives back to communities in LA, where he uses the LA Philharmonic as ministry to the poor, to children, to music education around the country and the world. This is a conductor who cares about people, and even if his musical palate is not as sophisticated as Petrenko or Roth, a very real and rare humanity comes through in his performances. He's not subtle, but neither were Barbirolli or Bernstein, who lead with passion and enthusiasm before care, and the eruptive force from Dudamel at his best is not entirely dissimilar from theirs.
Whether or not you hate Gustavo, he is becoming responsible for providing half his peers a career whose performances you may one day grow to like more than his: Mirga, Santtu, Weilerstein, Bringuier, Jonathan Hayward, Gemma New, Ruth Reinhardt.... Most of these conductors are not even five years younger than him, but every one of them owes their career to his fellowship program. Even if he grew up in the spotlight, this is a guy who does not need to hog it.
And if that's not enough, his orchestra is commissioning more composers than any orchestra since Koussevitzky, and even if he gives many of the premieres to Susanna Malkki, he could easily have turned the Los Angeles into a place like Yannick's Philadelphia Orchestra, where predictable performances are played of predictable repertoire.
Yes, there are hundreds of mediocre Dudamel performances, but he has had so many moments which demonstrate his explosion of talent - however seldom they come out. A lot of people think it took Leonard Bernstein and John Barbirolli thirty years to truly achieve their potential on the podium. By 2050, I think people will take Dudamel's greatness for granted and people will go to his performances expecting a revelation. It's a shame it may take him that long to get there, but what else could we expect when musicians are hailed as artistic messiahs in their early 20s?
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-09-11/gustavo-dudamel-fellows-fellowship-conductors?fbclid=IwAR1ablDt2mr0dPpbM57w7I5X8E7b4sJZEpjc53p3Dcjoowd89CAI_nNGu9I
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