Los Angeles Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall – Gustavo Dudamel conducts Mahler One – María Dueñas plays Gabriela Ortiz’s Altar de cuerda 

Gabriela Ortiz
Altar de cuerda [New York premiere]
Mahler
Symphony No.1 in D

María Dueñas (violin)

Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel

An LA Phil commission, Altar de cuerda by Gabriela Ortiz, featuring María Dueñas, is the seventh, and most recent, in Ortiz‘s “musical altars” series, each scored for a different ensemble. (An eighth – a trumpet concerto – is being written.) Ortiz’s conception of ‘altar’ is not religious, but rather a place “to elevate the music.”

Altar de cuerda (String altar) is in three movements, fast-slow-fast. Ortiz, a chilanga (native of Mexico City) and daughter of an architect, drew inspiration from architectural features of that city. ‘Morisco chilango’ includes melodic allusions to Mediterranean music to reference Moorish influences in Mexico City, as well as acknowledging the Andalusian roots of Dueñas. The soloist met the demands with dazzling technique and superb musicianship that belie her tender age, maintaining a furious pace through most of the movement, often at the top of her instrument’s range. At one point a horn swooped above the violin, and later, pulsating strings served to change the mood. Characteristically, percussion added many soft and subtle touches of color. In ‘Canto abierto’ (Open song), the violin’s lyrical lines refer to open chapels common in sixteenth-century Mexican churches to overcome the resistance of some indigenous peoples to enter enclosed spaces. Two extended unaccompanied violin passages were particularly impressive, as was its plaintive melody at the close. In addition to swelling strings and varied accents from percussion, there were notable contributions from horn, harp and piano. And, in an unusual twist, the woodwind and brass players played tuned crystal glasses to deepen the harmonic atmosphere. The rapid-paced ‘Maya déco’, according to Ortiz, combines her imagined sound of Mayan music with her take on Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture. The few respites from the ferocious solo part were filled by loud and strongly rhythmic orchestral passages. A lengthy cadenza, rife with fits and starts, trills and double-stops, put Dueñas through her paces, as well as providing a sweet melodic moment that brought a smile to her face. A percussive blow ended the piece. Francisco Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra (Memories of the Alhambra), arranged by Ruggiero Ricci, was Dueñas’s encore.

Following intermission, Gustavo Dudamel led a stirring performance of Mahler’s First Symphony. The mysterious aura of the strings’ gradual emergence from silence was suggestive of the dawning of a spring day, with offstage trumpets, sonorous horns and chirping birdsong heralding the cellos’ voicing of a theme inspired by the composer’s earlier Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). Both in the opening movement and the ensuing Ländler-based Scherzo, Dudamel brought out the dance-like character of the music. He managed the frequent changes of dynamics and tempos, with particular delicacy in the segues to and from the latter movement’s graceful Trio. The third began with bassist Christopher Hamulik’s beautifully played solo of Mahler’s minor-key version of ‘Frère Jacques’ that re-casts it as a parodistic funeral dirge that alternates and contrasts with the winds’ klezmer-influenced passages. The Finale began explosively, the brass resplendent. Dudamel teased out the inexorable progression of the majestic principal theme, interspersed with material recollected from earlier in the Symphony, toward a triumphant climax, with seven horn-players standing, as per the composer’s instructions.